Managing Public Perception Quotes

You have to take the good with the bad. Some players only talk to the press when they are doing good. When you're doing bad you shouldn't shy away from them and when doing good, don't run up to them.

I feel like thanking Paul Dacre every time, because the reason they ask me is because they think I've come through the other end with a pretty good reputation. Loads of people get a bad press but have a good reputation. [David] Beckham - think what he went through. [Bill] Clinton, likewise. You just have to be true to yourself.

I think we all have different ways with coming to terms with celebrity if you're raised within it. Everyone goes through it differently, and there's no one right answer.

The approval of the public is to be avoided like the plague. It is absolutely essential to keep the public from entering if one wishes to avoid confusion. I must add that the public must be kept panting in expectation at the gate by a system of challenges and provocations.

I've learned that I don't want to be as open or public about relationships anymore. In my first relationship, I thought I could hold on to the normalcy of just being like "Yeah, we're dating," just like if it were high school and I was telling my friends. But in high school, there aren't articles written everywhere when you break up and you don't have everyone in the school coming up to you and asking what happened or sharing their opinion with you. It didn't feel like ours anymore, it felt like everybody else's.

The public wishes itself to be managed like a woman; one must say nothing to it except what it likes to hear.

That was one of the things that worried me – to be raised to the position of a semi-god – because then you are no longer a human being. I wanted to be known as Mandela, a man with weaknesses, some of which are fundamental, and a man who is committed, but never the less, sometimes he fails to live up to expectations.

This is precisely the purpose of censorship - not only to block unwanted views, but to keep people who are unhappy from knowing how many millions of others share their unhappiness; to keep the dormant opposition from awakening to its own developing strength.

All the child-star cliches, I've tried very hard to avoid them all.

If you don't get famous when you're a kid, it makes the transition to adult actor easier.

I know people are tired of me not saying anything, but a guy doesn't have to answer to innuendos.

Navigating the transition from child actor to an adult actor isn't easy.

Standing in front of a microphone where every word or every slip that you make, especially in these times, is with you forever - you want to say the right thing. I fell into having to extemporize, and it came okay because of tools I've learned. I said [to myself], "Remember [to mention] mom and dad."

I don't know if you're ever prepared for public scrutiny. I don't know if you can even mentally prepare yourself for it. But it is part of the job. It's maybe not the most pleasant part but I get to experience so many other things that I shouldn't be able to experience. So, that's the trade-off.