Actor

From my second son Gustav, I bought one of his complaints for 200 kroner. He was complaining that he was a middle child - he wasn't the beloved first child, and he wasn't the cute little youngest child. So I said, can I use that same wording in a film? And he said yeah. So I bought it from him.

I can say yes to some directors without even reading a script. But the first-time directors I've worked with, the scripts have not been perfect, but they had something that I liked.

I think Dan Brown is a terribly bad writer, but he has cliff-hangers after every chapter which makes you continue reading.

Shooting should not be about delivering something I've prepared; it should be a live process of finding things out. When things happen that you haven't planned, that's when the film comes alive.

I'm not lazy on set. I'm lazy in the rest of my life.

Acting is such a strange, vague profession, but my kids know it's hard labour.

My life reads more like Proust than a tabloid.

The way I look at humanity, I don't think there's good guys or bad guys. We're all potentially bad and potentially good.

Kenneth Branagh is one of the funniest directors on the set. You laugh a lot. He's very skillful.

I really enjoy being part of the Marvel Universe. It's a cool bunch of people to work with, and they know what they're doing.

I was the eldest of five children, and although I never saw myself as any kind of leader, as the eldest, like it or not, you have some power inherent in that position.

I go where I think I can enjoy myself. Sometimes it's on a big movie, and sometimes it's even on a silly movie.

I don't do sports, really.

I only did 'Thor' because it was Kenneth Branagh directing, but I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.

With Fincher, you can take chances and try things. And what happens is that any pretension and preparation you've done, all the square, intellectual work, you can't keep that up for 40 takes. It breaks down, and new things start popping up. This, for me, is the most exciting thing about film-making.

I've been offered a lot of police series, but I'm very good at staying away from them. They're usually based on such a boring formula.

Maybe there is something specifically Scandinavian that comes out of the long, dark winters - you have to learn to laugh at misery, in a way.

The Sermon on the Mount is a very nice piece about being good, but most of the Bible is a very revengeful, childish, brutal God.

I'm not always happy when Hollywood does remakes of films, but that's usually when they have a very, very, very good film, and they take away anything controversial from it and make flatter.

I never help my kids and I never encourage them and I never give them any advice.