I've had my heart broken, and it's not fun. But I'd rather have my heart broken than break someone else's heart.

I always wanted to get out [in the world] and see what was here . . . what defines me is wanderlust.

[interview in Feb. 202 "Teen People" magazine] It's hard for me to work closely with a girl and not completely fall in love with her as a person.

Making people laugh is hard, especially for someone who is not happy.

[on moving out of Los Angeles] I didn't want to get sucked up in the madness. Flitting around from club to club and girl to girl is no way to live.

We're all on a journey. The average American switches professions four times. I'm lucky to be in a business where I can change the character I am playing every couple of months.

That whole idea of American film being different from European film is nonsense. It all depends on what kind of American film you're looking at. There's a giant stretch of American films being made. Plus, there are different types of French movies. You know, people would say that Luc Besson's movies are American . . . so you go, "Well, he's French". Or that Wicker Park (2004) is an American film, but [the director] Paul McGuigan's Scottish, so . . . where are we talking about here? Is it all about where the money comes from, 'cause the money for this one comes from Europe. It can't be that. Is it the star? Then where do you put Russell Crowe? For me, film is film and it doesn't have to do with borders or any of that sort of thing.

I'm trying to choose scripts by character. I'm not so worried about creating a career. I want to create good roles, because ...I want to be the best actor I can be.

I try my hardest not to have any plans. It drives the people in my life crazy. But I try to spend the majority of my time back home.

Usually, when I meet a really pretty girl, right off the bat I start to feel pretty insecure.

Life isn't what it's like in the movies.

[on filming I Come with the Rain (2009)] Shooting in Hong Kong was nice. But it wasn't all that different from shooting in the U.S. or shooting in Europe. But shooting in the Philippines was. We shot for a bit in a place called Diwalwal, outside Davao in Mindanao. And it was about a five-hour car ride from the nearest airport to the foot of the mountain where this town was. We went up to the mountain, and they had never seen white people in person before. It was a really interesting dynamic. They would follow us around. There were 43,000 people in the town, and there would be a couple of thousand following us around everywhere. People were very nice, very sweet. But there were some rebels around the area who kidnap for money, so we had to have the Filipino army with us.

[on filming 30 Days of Night (2007)] I had a good time shooting in New Zealand. I almost bought a home there while I was there, because I loved it so much. The fact that so much topography is jammed into such a small area--it is like everything in the United States, basically, in a country the size of southern California. And there are so few people. It feels like open landscape. Natural. But it is still an 18-hour flight from here. That was kind of the biggest deterrent.

Be honest with yourself and lie to everyone else.

Hope is the most exciting thing in life and if you honestly believe that love is out there, it will come. And even if it doesn't come straight away there is still that chance all through your life that it will.

[on being a member of Hollywood] I love to reach out and slot myself into the Hollywood system and do my thing, but I don't ever want to be a fully-fledged member, someone who is a stable element. I don't want to be a pillar - I want to be a guy on the outside hitting it with a hammer.

Hollywood doesn't need my love.

I'm looking forward to finding someone in life that I can be truly happy with and relate to on all levels - someone I can bounce my stuff off. Right now, though, I'm not searching for that. But I still like knowing it will be out there sometime later.

(2015) The intensity of my sudden fame was overwhelming for me, and in the middle of that, I felt I couldn't trust any new person I met or their motives. I spent a lot of time back home in Minnesota with my friends and family. I did smaller movies, and I stopped working for a while. If I could go back and take with me my wisdom of today, I wish I'd been more resilient. I hope I wouldn't be as panicked as I was. Maybe I'd have known that no matter what people try to take from you, you don't have to give it to them. I've definitely grown a bit.

[About his first child, a daughter, back in April 2016, the Pearl Harbor actor shared how becoming a dad changed his outlook on life] Saying during an appearance on Live with Kelly and Mark (1988) (as Live! with Kelly and Michael) that his then-infant daughter is the "apple of my eye" and "perfect in every way."

(2015, on turning down roles) I've definitely said no to some of the wrong people. I said no because I was tired and wanted to spend more time with my friends and family. That's frowned upon in this industry. People don't like being told no. I don't like it. I learned my lesson when Christopher Nolan and I talked about Batman. I decided it wasn't for me. Then he didn't want to put me in The Prestige. They not only hired their Batman for it, they also hired my girlfriend at the time (Scarlett Johansson)... That's when I realized relationships were formed in the fire of that first Batman film and I should have been part of the relationship with this guy Nolan, who I felt was incredibly cool and very talented. I was so focused on not being pigeonholed and so scared of being considered only one thing as an actor. I should have thought, Well, then, work harder, man. Watching Christian Bale go on to do so many other things has been just awesome. I mean, he's been able to overcome that. Why couldn't I see that at the time?