I looked straight across at the clock and I was disappointed with the time. I should have run under 49 and I didn't. And I knew I had a lot more in me.

As the screenwriter, the majority of my input comes at an earlier stage.

To get the most out of the world around you you’ve got to really look hard. Most people out walking in the woods don’t really look. They just glance around. They scan. Before I start a painting I spend a lot of time looking and thinking, I go out in the car and pull a chair out of the boot and sit in the woods. I sit there and smoke and just look.

And now, what are those of us who are elected public officials supposed to do? We call ourselves "public servants" but I'll tell you this: We as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good if we are derelict in upholding the common good. More is required -- More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future.

"The love you take is equal to the love you make" – Lennon/McCartney.

The only experience I’ve had, in the early 90s I was working in the theatre and I went through a very bad period, 3 or 4 years, of dread inducing panic attacks before going out on stage and then I got an international film career and they sort of disappeared [laughter].

I wanted my children to grow up in Australia, and if I have anything to pass on to them as a parent as a mentor, it is my own experiences of having grown up there, and shaped a career there.

I tend to shape my life through aesthetic principles rather than economic ones – I’ve never been very good at maths.

I often thought I was in the wrong business. I was pretty seriously thinking of tossing it in before I shot Shine.

During my Queensland childhood, on the days when I avoided the chlorine-infused shower gauntlet and being corralled into the deep end of the school pool.