To act with a tennis ball and imagine it's a tentacle, or if you're in some kind of wilderness film and you go, 'Okay, we can't have a grizzly bear here, but imagine when you step over the rock there there's a grizzly bear.' I don't know. They're tough moments.
— Joel Edgerton
The biggest difference for me is momentum. On a smaller film you get to shoot sometimes four or five scenes a day and you've got to do the tight schedule. I think I really feel the luxuries of a big budget film.
There's the pressure of being a No. 1 on the call sheet, being a lead actor. There's almost this feeling like being captain of the team. You want to put a bit of energy into actually setting a good example.
I'm hardly digging trenches for a living. I'm getting to tap into my boyhood fantasies of being a larger-than-life character.
That's one of the great privileges, being an actor, is that someone pays you and sends you off to learn about something that otherwise you'd never know about.
Whenever you deal with science fiction you are setting up a world of rules. I think you work hard to establish the rules. And you also have to work even harder to maintain those rules, and within that find excitement and unpredictability and all that stuff.
I'm on the list that I thought I'd never be on. I'm not sitting here thinking, 'God, I might get this part' or 'is it too late for me to play Hamlet?' It's really about: who do I get to work with? There's so many people on that list.
The tricky thing becomes: Do you know yourself well enough to then portray that on screen? And for me, I find that really hard. I'd rather hide behind accents and funny walks.
I remember my brother Nash had just directed me in 'The Square,' and I was sitting in Australia going: 'No one's called me about working for ages. I don't know if I'm ever going to get another job.'
It feels good to be fit and strong.
The first video I ever watched was on a Beta system because everyone thought Beta was the way but then it ended up being video so we backed the wrong horse.
It's tricky. I've never been standing at the top of the tree with tons of money thrown at me. I've never really had a profile. So in a way I have this 'nothing to lose' attitude.
Whereas 'Avatar' and other movies get shocks out of their three-dimensionality, 'Gatsby' is going to be about inviting the audience into this larger-than-life drama, letting them almost be inside the room rather than looking at it through the window. I think it will really work.
The sum total of all my stop-starts have made me less concerned about the future. I'm just aware now that I'll always land on my feet somehow.
