Quotes from Patrick Wilson

There's just a natural instinct to want to be great, I think.

Yeah, I'm a spiritual person.

You're defined by your older brothers' or sisters' music.

I love making movies, but there's nothing like being in front of an audience.

There's such an immediate intimacy with film that you just don't get in theater.

I was convinced in middle school that I invented tight-rolling your pants, because I would get hand-me-downs from my brothers, and of course they were bell-bottoms from the '70s. So I would fold and fold over the bells. I like to think I started the trend. But I didn't.

I love to go to casinos with my wife. I play poker, and she's an old-fashioned slot queen. She even has a visor.

Honestly, if you're just going to be the love interest then at least let it be a really good movie. Not every role is going to be Hamlet, I know that.

I think the balance is between what you can get, what you want and what wants you.

When you're playing the good guy, you want to find the dirty parts - and when you're playing the bad guy, you want to find the vulnerability.

For everybody that does something bad there's gotta be someone that does something good.

I try to do as many different roles as the system will allow me. That's the benefit of not being in a giant blockbuster where you're the lead and you get typecast in that kind of role. I am able to slip in or out of a lot of different parts.

If you look back on the breakups that you've had, whether it's a long relationship or a one-night stand, it's always awkward.

It was always acting for me, since I was about 15. My middle brother always wanted to be a news anchor, so we always felt that he'd be the one to take over for dad, so we could go and do our thing.

You know when you see those guys and their sideburns are just a little too high? You don't need to have sideburns, but don't have to have them right above the ear. I knew a guy that did that in high school and I was like, 'What are you doing? Just let them down a little.'

For me, I always have to establish a reality for the character. In very actor-y terms, you just have to understand his reality.

If you look back on the breakups that you've had, whether it's a long relationship or a one-night stand, it's always awkward.

I am fascinated with religion or things that people believe in and question that. I think it's interesting.

There are a lot of Christian fundamentalists there are a lot of Muslim extremists. Every religion - Mormonism - has something way on the side that's completely using the religion as some weird backbone for their twisted faith. It has nothing to do with their religion.

I love making movies, but there's nothing like being in front of an audience.

I try to shave at night so my skin has a chance to settle by the early morning call-time.

The way you deal with a scare is the way you deal with a laugh. The timing has to be perfect. When you're dealing with fear or laughter - emotions that happen spontaneously - you hope it's working. But in the moment, you really have no idea.

Just as we may, through an appalled realization that we were unaware of what was going on in the mind of one we thought we knew, come to wonder how we ever know what another person is thinking or feeling, so too we may, having on some occasion wanted badly to understand and having clearly failed, come to wonder how we ever manage to understand, and how we know that we have succeeded.