Acting was always there, it's true. But for a long time, in my teenage years, I wasn't sure about it - not because I didn't like it, but I didn't want people to think I hadn't earned it.

Personally I don't believe in bad people. I think there's always a reason for people acting badly.

I'm constantly embarrassed at the level of attention actors get and the level of money that we get. It's completely disproportionate.

A character on screen that's the 'good guy' or the 'bad guy,' they're never interesting. There's got to be an internal struggle, the duality is important to find.

In movies we tend make things black and white: you're either this, or you're that.

In terms of jobs, I'm an actor. There's gotta' be depth there. I'd never say yes to something just to play the hot guy. That's not what I'm interested in.

I don't want to ever think that I don't know what to do. I want to deal with my own things, to perform my own roles, to be like, "I did this."

I've lived in California for six years and I've never surfed.

TV is a very sensitive thing. If you're not happy with what you're doing, I don't think you should do it because you will do it for awhile.

I come from a family of pacifists, so it's not like I was going to join the war. Sweden is not like the States or England where you might get sent to Afghanistan next month.

Sweden is a small country and, well, our family's pretty prominent in that world, I guess. And I really didn't like the sound of just being 'the fourth acting Skarsgard.

People will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

A bright man of conviction and action is a beacon to his country, but a flash light to the scurrying of inaction, ego, and insecurity of lesser men.

Talk of nothing but business, and dispatch that business quickly.

M'Illumino D'Immenso - I flood myself with the light of the immense.

There is nothing to fear, because you cannot fail... only learn, grow and become better than you've ever been before.

I can't sing a love song Like the way it's meant to be Well, I guess I'm not that good anymore But baby, that's just me

When I was offered the part in Shakespeare In Love a voice in my head said 'not another tights role!

A story is a living thing, it moves and shifts.

Study hard. Work hard. Play harder. Don't be bound by rules, don't hurt anybody and never ever live somebody else's dream.

You can't explain the unknown in terms of the incomprehensible.