Quotes from Ben Mendelsohn

Once upon a time, they thought I was a sweet, wide-eyed boy that was just trying to figure out how to kiss the girl. Lots of comic relief and adolescent yearnings.

I don't believe in the transformation myth, where if you have more success, life changes for you.

Most young actors, that's all they're trying to do: Get better at acting and be able to keep doing it. And that doesn't work out for most people.

I think Kyle Chandler is something of a national treasure.

I mean, there's a sense wherein you skip a part of childhood, too, when you start working at that age I did; I was out working and out of home at 15, paying my own way in the world.

I got a good-enough adolescence. I mean, there's a sense wherein you skip a part of childhood, too, when you start working at that age I did; I was out working and out of home at 15, paying my own way in the world.

I think now there's much more of a confessional culture. That's not my bag. I come from a slightly older school of thought: 'give 'em nothin.' You don't plead guilty.

I got the first job and kept going. Once I got a job, I very much wanted to keep getting jobs, basically. I did try to learn what I could in those first couple of decades.

Before 'Animal Kingdom,' I wasn't particularly thought of in villainous roles.

'Animal Kingdom' is a lot of things, but it's not heartwarming.

There are always dimensions, and the way they get expressed is through the writing and the actors and the director you get to work with on that day. But there are always dimensions, outside of really basic stuff for very young people where it needs to be very clear.

Let me give you a little Mendelsohn 101: I came up in television in the early- to mid- 1980s in Australia.

'Animal Kingdom' was an amalgam of two people that I had met-slash-known, not particularly well. They were both very, very scary people for very different reasons.

I basically sat around unemployed in Sydney for three years straight, and the two things that saved me were the rugby league and my dog.

I never felt like someone who was boyish and coming to terms with asking girls out or anything like that, which was what 'The Big Steal' and 'Spotswood' were about. But I guess that's the impression I left on people.

I think I've benefited from not being hugely known. It means I have to do something really effective to be noticed.

It's got a lot more room for nuance and an assumption that people have started from the beginning. 'Bloodline' ends up being like a really good novel.

At 15 I had moved out of my parents' place, and my options were looking pretty narrow. But I had this acting thing and I just wanted to be able to keep going because it was really good. That was all I wanted.

My favorite-ever version of 'King Lear' is the 1971 film by Peter Brooks. He has this enormous fur thing, and it adds enormous gravitas.

I had a pretty good career at home. What keeps you going is not having a plan B. It's a very good thing. I think if I had a viable plan B, I might not have kept going.

One of my earlier films is 'Quigley Down Under.' That was early on in my career, and that was horsey.

There are two things: 1) what things one does in the world, and 2) what family one has. There's the two really tangible things that can stay.