Justin Theroux Quotations

I was always acting. I was doing after-school plays and stuff like that. But I wasn't doing well in any of the schools, so by ninth or tenth grade, I ended up going to a boarding school.

Any good movie or script usually, if they're doing their job, gives the highest platform possible for an actor to leap off of, and that script was very high up there. It was a very smart, tight script. There was a lot of improv, as well, once we got to the set, but a lot of the original script was also in there.

Being a fan of comedy, it's so unique, in their own voice. I was really stoked to be able to participate. They're so great at just coming up with stuff on the fly and making stuff funny.

I devoured TV - everything from Super Friends in the morning to Dukes of Hazzard and The Love Boat and Fantasy Island at night. I watched it all. There were only four channels, so you could actually consume all of television if you were good at changing the channel.

I was always acting. I was doing after-school plays and stuff like that.

After my parents got divorced, I had to go right into public school in the fourth grade. The Steiner school had never really taught me how to read, so it was a rude awakening. I was playing catch-up the whole time.

I don't miss much about my childhood. I lived in a good neighborhood, a wacky neighborhood. It was a very boy-heavy neighborhood - kind of Lord of the Flies-y. So many weird things happened, funny things.

I've always liked boots. I always think it's better to wear a boot, not a shoe.

I had such a distaste for '70s clothing. So, the '90s were a rough period for me because I got made fun of for wearing what they used to call "pegged pants." Now they call them "skinny jeans."

I hate when people make a really good product and then stop making it. I get annoyed.

I love New York. It's kind of perfect. I'm in New York part of the time and in L.A. part of the time. That's always been a goal, to be bicoastal in a real way.

You can get stuff done in New York that you can't in Los Angeles. If you wanted to get some milk and get your shoes repaired and drop something off at the dry cleaner, that's an all-day adventure in Los Angeles. In New York, you can bang that out in half an hour.

I like all the clichés. I mean, I love someone who lives in Los Angeles - so that's a big draw. But I love the weather. It does feel like a slightly healthier lifestyle, being able to hike and do all that crap.

I always try to do the most interesting, fun thing for me.

D.C. is a hard city to grow up in. I couldn't find my footing there. Also, I got a late start academically, and I was dyslexic.

It's the fun part 'cause you don't have any of the real heavy-lifting to do. You just come in and shout and chew scenery, and just be awful and say a few jokes, and you don't have to carry the romantic storyline or the quest part of the story. You just pop up, every now and again.

I stole a lot from Gary Oldman. I stole the hairdo from his incarnation of Dracula. We cheated it just enough, so we couldn't get accused of copyright infringement.

I'm not method or anything like that, but sometimes you get the scenes and you're like 'Really, Damon [Lindelof]? More of this? Can I have one scene where it's a walk in the park?' But he doesn't do that. He puts every character through their paces.

There was a moment, late into the season, where I was noticing I was darkening a little bit at night. I was like, 'It will be nice when the show is over for the season. I need a vacation.'

Normally when you're promoting something a lot, sometimes you get tired.

There was a time when doing "Zoolander 2" that I was literally flying between the "Zoolander" shoot and "The Leftovers" in Texas and at that point, I was getting comedy whiplash. It was a relief, though, to get to Rome and be like, "Oh my God, I get to laugh on set."

I feel more comfortable writing firmly comedic or slightly comedic stuff.

Though there is something cruel about being in Hawaii and you have a computer in front of you the whole time.

You try to break it down to weeks at a time otherwise you sort of make yourself crazy spinning out going from one....you just can't get your head around one of them fully. So I'm more task oriented. I like to sort of like focus on one thing for a couple of weeks...and also they're all in different stages of development.

I haven't had a chance to pick up a good book in a long time, because I've been either reading scripts or learning them or writing them. And so, by the time the day is done, I usually just want to click on The Bachelor and fall asleep. But I gravitate toward biographies and things like that.

I didn't really because I know myself well enough to know that if I actually sit down and think about sort of I can spook myself out like anyone, you know? It's sort of like you've got to sort of jump out of the airplane when you're skydiving. If you spend 20 minutes sitting on the lip you probably won't do it.

I would always choose the script. You get more creative control that way. But, when you're in a situation like this, where everyone is really funny and you really want to do it, that's the chance of a lifetime, so you want to do it. But, a script has longer legs than a performance and, in the end, is more satisfying. It's harder, but it's more satisfying.

I've never been the guy who's like, 'I take it home with me.'

In New York, you can bump into someone on the street and go to a thing, go get coffee real quick.

Actually, I'm reading a lot of my scripts. When I'm working on something, it's hard to find time. You're always prepping new material. You don't want to be buried in a book. It splits your focus a little bit.

I've always been pretty happy with my style. I've been wearing tapered jeans since 1980 something.

In the '90s, there was a big bell-bottom craze. Everyone was wearing grungy bell-bottoms. It was so repugnant to me.

When I was 13, I kind of got into the punk scene. I realized it was easier to wear a pair of combat boots and jeans and a beat-up T-shirt. I think of it as a uniform: Ya know, if you're a Maytag man, you put on your bow tie. I still have T-shirts from when I was that age.

I did Chekhov's Three Sisters once. Two months in, I remember going, "Human beings shouldn't be forced to do or watch this play every night." It's so dark and so bottomless.

When you hear about people in the '50s getting married at 20, you're like, What were they thinking? My grandparents were together for over 50 years.

Unless you hit your television with a sledgehammer, you're not going to be able to be an individual.

If I was roped into a seven-year TV contract I'd probably hang myself.

I didn't have a lot of ambition, which I think was a good thing. I mean, I was ambitious about quality, but I wasn't ambitious in the "I've got to get a pilot!" way. I never went out to L.A. for pilot season.

I've never been shocked by anything on television, except the news.

There's a logic to dreams that doesn't necessarily follow linear narrative. You don't know why things happen, it's your subconscious pushing you, to give you information.

It's like, once you've seen Tom Hanks win the Golden Globes, the Oscars, you've seen his wife, what kind of car he drives, when you watch his movies, you can't fully get really lost in them.

I mean the good thing about Marvel is that they're really good about reading what they call the shareholders - the fans. Because they really are the keepers of what keeps these movies going, you know?

I think we need to tell stories that reflect our world.

I always go to bed thinking I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

Fame is something I think happens as a result of trying to do good work. If you're trying to be famous, your work usually suffers.