The first time I did a big American film, I was surprised by all the different financiers who came to the set and told the director what to do.
I did a guest appearance on 'Entourage.' That was horrible, because I'm used to analysing the characters, working with all the details... and they said, 'No no no, walk and talk, walk and talk! It's energy energy energy!' - so it didn't quite suit me.
Norway is a small country, about half the size of Sweden, but it has a very good film climate because they have municipal cinemas, so even in the smallest towns you have a cinema that shows art house films from all over the world.
The distribution systems and the cinemas have adopted to the blockbusters, and they now get their main income from selling popcorn, and if you don't make a film that sells popcorn, it's very hard to get it out there.
I've worked with Lars von Trier on many films, and there's always a female character that's like an open wound - everything just pours out of this person.
Any society that starts forbidding certain words or expressions is a society you should be wary about, whether it's the KGB or social consensus that enforces it.
Of course, working with Halle Berry is fantastic. Every day, you're looking at a performance that you would be prepared to pay to watch. She's truly great and truthful, and it's a joy.
It's good to pay high taxes - you have free schools, free universities. It's a much more decent society than those where everybody pays their own way, and some people don't get anything.
I do believe in humanism, and I believe that we should treat each other with respect and care and look after each other. All human beings should have an equal chance to survive in society, and inequality is a big problem in society.
I only did 'Thor' because it was Kenneth Branagh directing, but I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.
Kenneth Branagh is one of the funniest directors on the set. You laugh a lot. He's very skillful.
I like working with Kenneth Branagh.
It's fun to play characters with a past, but it's also fun to play any role that is what I would call a 'pressure cooker' kind of character, where the lid is on, and it's left to simmer throughout the movie.
Even if you're the President of the United States, you still act like a little child and think like a little child sometimes. Childish behavior is what I look for in all of my characters because that is what makes them human.
I am not a nationalist in any way, and I hate flag waving, and I don't think much good has come out of nationalism. I am proud of Scandinavia in the sense that we have actually managed to create a very tolerant and human society, which is very livable.
It's a disease we have that we think that everything is explainable. It's a merchandising idea because you can sell explanations and cures for everything, but it doesn't work like that. It's very hard to understand everything.
We were working under very harsh conditions on 'Zero Kelvin.' We were up there in the Arctic, closer to the North Pole than to a hospital. Sometimes you had to sleep in small Arctic tents with guns to protect yourself from polar bears and stuff.
Rupert Murdoch is in bed with Cameron. Of course they want to kill the BBC... anybody who is in the way.
For 'Avengers,' in the Albuquerque desert, we shot New York there. And I was standing on a platform, nine feet high... and it was the rooftop of a skyscraper in New York. And it was all desert around me!
People don't want to read subtitles.
