Joel Edgerton dumped his fiancee to focus on his career.

Joel Edgerton

Joel Edgerton

The 'Great Gatsby' star broke off his engagement to fashion designer Alexis Blake in 2013 because he was "really close to the line" with his work and even now he feels "married" to acting.

Explaining his decision, he told Australia's GQ magazine: "You're really close to the line and that [position] makes you re-evaluate a lot of things.

"Right at that time, I made a decision that I was just going to work my a**e off. To be honest, I haven't changed that thought. I'm seriously married to work.

"Just recently I was like, 'Maybe I need to take a little bit of time off,' because ever since then I've worked non-stop. And that's been fine and it's been rewarding to a degree. But at the same time ..."

While the 'Black Mass' actor is currently focused on his career, having children is also in his plans.

He admitted about the possibility of having kids: "Yeah, I think about it. I just turned 42. I have time. Plenty of time."

Joel isn't worried that his career has taken a long time to really take off as he thinks success would have been wasted on him when he was younger.

He said: "Look, here's the thing about me -- I'm a slow burn," he says.

"I'm f***ing 42 and I finally have a career. If success had come earlier, I definitely would have pissed it up the wall."

And one of the reasons why his career has been a "slow burn" is that he is very selective about the roles he takes.

He said: "If I'd done a s***ty movie, maybe I'd have a Maserati.

"But I'd be sitting across from you, biting my tongue all f***ing day going, 'I f***ing hate myself for this s**t.'

"If you're super good-looking and charismatic and you like playing the same character every time, good luck to you -- you'll make squillions of dollars. The interest I have in being an actor, though, is adapting your energy to play all sorts of different characters."


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