“My mum was a children's librarian, so I spent a lot of time in the lib...” — Eleanor Catton Quote

“My mum was a children's librarian, so I spent a lot of time in the library. My reading life, because of my mum's work, was evenly split between American, Canadian, Australian and British authors.”

“Fiction is supposed to be immersive and supposed to be entertaining and narrative, so structures have to be buried a little bit. If they come foregrounded too much, it stops being fiction and starts being poetry - something more concrete and out of time.”

“Money doesn't transform a person - the only thing that can is love.”

“It's the best feeling ever: the adrenalin, the extra boost, the support you get from the very passionate Australian Open crowd is amazing.”

“I don't mind running; I don't mind taking a few knocks. But hopefully, it's just not 'Sam's an action dude.' That, to me, is not what I wanted. I wanted to bring a sense of weight and emotionality of doing Australian films and bring that into a bigger blockbuster, so you're not just kind of grunting and groaning and running around.”

“I grew up with a lot of Australian rock music. My dad loves AC/DC and INXS was a big one. My mom was more on the softer musical end of the spectrum, so Crowded House and stuff like that. Definitely all of my rock influences are very Australian typical.”