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Character is what a man is in the dark.

Well, you know, with every character, if you're going to expose yourself, you've got to figure out every detail that you're going to play. So there's no character that you can just go put on his shirt and be fully prepared.

The man that makes a character, makes foes.

Balthazar Balsan is not a self-portrait. If he was, I'd have made the character more flattering.

When you play someone who is an iconic figure you can't go into it lightly.

Whether you need to like a character, I don't think that's necessary in order to portray him.

A big part of what I wanted to do with this character was go from when I was a boy and try and develop into a man, really try and play him as a man who is on this search, on a journey of personal, spiritual, political, social discovery.

I certainly had no intention of playing a man.

I thought he was an interesting central figure, central character, one who is definitely not your typical central character figure in a film, who's easy to like. He's not easy to like. It forces you to involve yourself with what's going on.