Clive Owen Quotations

I am a big soccer fan, and a very big Liverpool fan.

The sexiest part of the body is the eyes. That's what I believe.

When you are shooting action, there is a satisfying thing because your objectives are very clear.

Jewelery isn't really my thing, but I've always got my eye on people's watches.

Parenthood and family come first for me, and when I'm not working I'm cool with the Teletubbies.

I guess I'm not that metrosexual. My bathroom cabinet is hardly overflowing with products. I only really have my stuff for shaving. I can't honestly say I moisturise, though I probably should.

Very often when you see families it's all perfect and neat, and parenting isn't like that. You do have constant negotiations. Things are ever developing and ever changing, and you constantly have to evaluate how you deal with your kids.

I always used to say to myself, I'm going to die of lung cancer. That's the choice I'm making.

As a teenager I was crazy about David Bowie. He was a huge inspiration for me. I dressed a little bit crazily in school and dyed my hair every colour under the sun.

I never really look at life and worry about missed opportunities,

As I get older, I've been having a better and better time.

I feel for those 19-year-olds who get thrust into the limelight that young.

I don't do facials or any of that stuff, but my workout regime does tend to depend on whether I have to take my top off in my next film because otherwise I know I'm too heavy.

A room full of great sportsmen is so much better than a room full of actors.

I think anybody who bets on horses and says they win is probably a liar.

If you explode onto the scene at a very young age, there are so many people pulling you in different directions. It takes time to recalibrate and see what's important.

I like to play characters that are convincing, that aren't just straightforward and nice.

I think it's dangerous to get into ideas of planning careers.

I want to go anywhere and everywhere and explore as much as I can.

There's certainly a huge element of luck in me ending up where I've ended up.

After writing a page, Hemingway would let it float to the ground. He never crumpled pages - he believed that if you crumpled them, you'd be insane in a year.

I am comfortable around babies and children because I have two of my own.

Frank Miller was worried it would be tempered down; it wouldn't be quite what he originally intended. Robert Rodriguez went to him and said, 'I'm going to be incredibly faithful to your original material,' shot a five-minute test. Frank said, 'I'm in. Let's do it.'

I don't think I've ever had a real fashion disaster.

He's a very inspired choice for a movie like this because he's very specific and precise and he's very psychologically clear. And for a movie like this, which you could do very bombastically -- a big, crash-bang-wallop thriller -- you knew that he would pitch it so that everything would be very objective and clear.

I think it's the most successful bedding in of computer technology and people I've ever seen in a movie.

My wife needs her freedom just like me.

I think I am more attracted to characters with a subtext, whatever that is and they don't necessarily have to be virtuous, but they have to at least be human.

Something I don't like seeing in other people is naked ambition, when somebody is really pushing hard to get to where they want to be. That's the way I look at that word - like you must be stepping on someone to get there. And I've never been comfortable with that.

I'm competitive with myself, not at the expense of everything around me. I never wanted to be a movie star. I just wanted to act.

I'm a big fan of comedies and dramas, and I watch tons of movies.

Acting is all about likability.

For an actor, it's very important to get a clear idea of what a director wants, and their intention for what they want to get out of a scene and how they want to shoot it. Having that knowledge is really valuable, for an actor. It means you can deliver more.

I believe that we live in a time of fractured families where maybe fathers aren't getting enough time to see their kids because life's complications and hardships get in the way of those things.

I go home to London in between jobs, and in London, my life has nothing to do with the business. It's a family life, hanging with friends.

I don't like being consumed by work all the time. I consume myself so much when I do a part that I like to step away from it.

I've got an age that I do think of myself.

When I look back, if I'd played something differently, it might not have gone the way it did. So I don't feel like going back to my twenties and changing anything.

I never aspired to be anything. What I've done is beyond my wildest.

I've done a number of things based on real people or true stories or based on books, and I'm a great believer that you have to be true to the script.

It's important to me that everyone is treated with respect.

You see these actresses who have had Botox or something else done, and it takes you out of the film.

No matter who the character is and how big their role, that each person in the story is a human being and deserves respect. Even if they're in the story for ten seconds, I didn't want you to just see them as this entity passing through that's serving all of the other people.

I go off and make movies; I come home, and I'm a dad and I hang with my girls.

Ultimately, to have a career in movies, to a certain extent, certainly in England, you can't sustain a career in just English movies.

One of the views of the [actor's] job is that whatever age you are, there's a role that's about who you are and where you are. There are parts for that age that you can bring things to.

I've had some great times with actresses, but that's in a movie.

Any actor who starts taking `sex symbol' seriously or thinks of themselves as a sex symbol has got some serious problems. I don't mind looking like I need a good wash and a good meal.

One of the things I'm most proud of about my career is the fact I've managed to keep options open.

The worst piece of advice I've gotten in my whole career is from somebody who said, Remember, it's all about likeability.

I've got actor friends who didn't get breaks, who struggle and worry about things that I'm fortunate not to have to worry about.

I don't think you necessarily identify and believe in the motifs of the character, but you have to want to play it and want to commit to the lines.

I really believe you can carry yourself in such a way that people don't notice you.

One of the things I love, more than anything, is jumping around and playing lots of different parts. I love the variety of playing different characters.

The further you run from your sins, the more exhausted you are when they catch up to you.

I did it for the money. But its not worth much if you cant face yourself in the mirror. Respect is the ultimate currency.

I'm one of those actors where usually I'll read a script, and then I'll have a flurry of notes. I'll ask a hundred questions about things, and really get in there and examine it.

Without faith, without belief in something, what are we?

The financial implode is bound to be reflected in the movies that are being made, there's no question.

I had to ride a horse once. In 'King Arthur.' I said I could ride, but I had to call for lessons on the day the deal was signed. I started out on this little chunky thing and slowly moved up. It was months of work.

I'm English and I'm used to coming from a world of period dramas, where there's a very polite restraint to everything. Everybody's sort of sitting in drawing rooms.

I actually really love working with young actors because they're so responsive and instinctive, and it's a much less honed craft that they're employing.

If you are making a script based on a book it can be frustrating going back to the source novel, because you're turning the story into a totally different thing; the narrative of film is different from that of a book.

The thing about Hemingway that people forget is that all the stuff he did was at a time where people weren't traveling that much. At 19 he travels to Italy. He goes to the Spanish Civil War. He goes to China, he goes to Africa so at that time to travel that much is really incredible.

The theater's a live thing, and film is, to some extent, a discipline where you're putting everything together and trying to execute something exactly. You do it away from people and then you present it at the end.

There's something to play if there's conflict going on. Whatever that conflict is, that's where drama is; if the character is grappling with something you've got something to play, there's layers to it.

Death frees the beast.

Sometimes you find your destiny on the road you took to avoid it.

Film is very much about capturing the essence of things - if you feel it, and you've got the right person shooting it, it'll come across. Theater's a different animal; it's physically different and requires a different discipline. In the theater, you're mining the same material, constantly honing the same thing, executing it and keeping it alive and fresh.

I was very keen on playing a victim.

I couldn't bear a marriage in which one partner hinges on the other.

I treat any scene the same - dialogue, action - you're still creating something in character. It's all acting, fighting.

I was not a very fearful kid, really.

I would never give anybody any advice about anything.

I can't remember ever being involved in a fight in a movie where I haven't done most of it.

A huge part of acting in movies is appetite. You do your best work when you've got a lot of appetite and you really want to embrace something. When you get tired, you don't have that hunger.

You're always dealing with emotions as an actor.

When I was younger, people used to say you only really prove yourself as an actor on stage. And I disagree with that. Some of the finest acting I've ever come across has been for film.

There's not a big gun culture in England at all still.

When you're doing those operation scenes, you not only have to be on top of the dialogue and the rhythm of the dialogue and what's happening dramatically, but you've got to technically get the rhythm right, so that everything is fitting with the dialogue at the right time. And you're performing the operation to the audience that's watching it. Thackery has to present it, as well. In some ways, that's the most challenging.

I don't like it when people are trying too hard. That goes for clothes, for acting, for everything. It's just not good when it seems like you're making too much of an effort.

I'm sort of one of those weird actors who whenever I do a play, I think, 'Oh, we should film this,' as opposed to have to belt it out of ourselves in a theater auditorium.

I have a problem with a lot of men's fragrances because they are very strong. Somebody somewhere thinks that masculine means powerful smells, and I find them overbearing and not very pleasant.

The medical operations are so challenging because they're so technical, as well. I assumed before we started that we would do the classic thing, when it comes to the operations, that we would do all of these inserts with real doctors.

For some people, an event happens and they are thrown into a tabloid feeding ground.

I do wear suits all the time.

You won't find a better young actor than Jaeden Lieberher. I ended up having one of the best times with him, really. Going to work with him every day was a treat.

I think that Phil Kaufman is one of the best directors that I have come across.

I live in London and I love living in a gun free environment and long may it continue.

When I started in the theater, the joy for me was playing different parts, and I get set alight by different people and different worlds. The biggest joy for me is jumping around and going from that to this to that, never feeling that I'm any one thing - because I'm not, and we as people aren't.

For me, London is and always will be home.

I always want my options to be open.

I love to mix it up. I love to keep doing different things.

I was at the birth of my two girls.

Outside of being home with my family, I prefer a crowd.

Rudeness can make me angry.

When there's an idiot driving crazily in front of you, that can wind the best of you up.

I'm just constantly trying to renew and give myself new challenges and push myself to uncomfortable places, trying to get better.

Action scenes are not that different from other scenes.

Movies are certainly a director's medium, so getting the opportunity to work with really good directors is everything to me.