Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm a terrible actor. I'm still learning. When I first started, I wish I knew then to trust myself more, really. I was in a terrible panic in the early part of my career.
I come from the theater, so for me rehearsal is vital and a way of life. There are many film directors who don't believe in it and some actors who prefer not to rehearse.
The Wolverine was fired from his job as a cashier in a newsagents after just six weeks because his boss said, "he talks too much to customers". He can talk to me all day.
I really do believe the camera steals the soul. But that may be because I'm worried about my soul. I don't have much of a soul to begin with; I can't afford to lose much.
I think with Shakespeare you can be required to do absolutely anything at the turn of a sixpence - suddenly you go into a battle, suddenly you utter something passionate.
I was raised with those principals and values and ethics that came out of the men and women that served. But this generation doesn't quite know; they haven't been tested.
The children right now, the young children, everybody should go to a martial arts school. Why? Because as soon as they go to a martial arts school, they learn discipline.
I grew up reading comics. I was primarily an 'X-Men' fan, but I definitely dressed up as Spider-Man for Halloween when I was, like, 12 years old. Maybe younger than that.
Other people's belief changes you. We all have insecurity, and uncertainty, and to have that glow cast over you by somebody that you respect, makes a gigantic difference.
Among all the accomplishments of life none are so important as refinement; it is not, like beauty, a gift of Nature, and can only be acquired by cultivation and practice.
I've been acting for many years now, and I find there's nothing I enjoy more than making films with my friends and people I like, who also are the funniest people around.
I'm not someone so much interested in exploring a slice of life unless that is down the corridor, around the corner, up the alley, and down the rabbit hole. That, I like.
What's weird is that I work with these directors and then I start channeling them. I kind of turn into them a bit - which is cool when you're working with Clint Eastwood.
My dad was a keen actor when he was young; my auntie is heavily involved in amateur dramatics back in Northern Ireland, and my great aunt was a woman called Greer Garson.
You know, because of the lack of budget, we had to find neighborhoods where time had stopped - kind of stuck in the '50s. And no place had that better than Staten Island.
I'm not going to normally get hired to play those emotional things, and I'm capable of it. I was raised by a single mother in Iowa - I'm just trapped in a big, dumb body.
Comedians are always going to be in the showbiz middle class, you're not Brad Pitt; you're never going to be Sam Rockwell or Shia LaBeouf or Leo DiCaprio. You're a comic.
Its quite pretentious, really, isnt it? The notion the audience is going to be interested in you for an hour and a half. Think too much about that and anxiety takes over.
I insist on doing all my own film stunts, although they are often worked out in advance by a stunt man who then advises me on the best and safest method of performing it.
During 'Anna Christie,' the biggest challenge I had was working with my daughter and sort of not stopping and asking an audience member for a camera to record the moment.
I do remember going shopping with my mother; I think the name of the store was Ruth Atkins. I don't know why I can remember that. It's probably because it's not the name.
I'm a mad Gummi fan. I always have Gummis in my trailer. But you can't eat too many because then you get Gummi tummy, and that's no good. I can't believe I'm saying this.
My father was a CPA. He worked hard in the aircraft industry, and would come home more and more infrequently. He was about to leave my mother, which he did when I was 15.
The truth is people are very nice. The other truth is, it's very annoying to be constantly interrupted. I don't love myself enough to want to share myself with everybody.
I did some good stuff over in the U.K., but I wasn't consistently working. For a while there, I was going, 'Do I really want to do this - should I go back to university?'
There's no audience to wonderfully get in your way when you're doing a single-camera anything, whether it's a sitcom or drama or film. And I do mean that in the best way.
Being in TV, we get to do it again and again until it's 'right.' There's a part of me that likes the other way, that aspect of theatre where there's no chance to go back.
Before 'Austenland,' I got do a lead role in 'Northanger Abbey', which is Jane Austen. Growing up in England, you can't really ignore Jane Austen. It's always been there.
I'm glad that I lost, I'm glad that I failed, I'm glad that I felt that way and decided to do something about it... I never wanted to feel that way again and it drove me.
I wanted to make a redemptive thriller that didn't end with some kind of big, crazy shootout and blood spill, but more of a collision of ideas and a discussion of ethics.
There's a stage where you're desperate to get a job, and you're waving your hands in a sea of nothingness, going, 'Please, please, please! I'm over here - give me a job!'
I look at characters to see if they have some contrasts to play with; I think that's always what I'm looking for in characters: ones that have a wide range of expression.
Wherever I am, I will embrace the life and the lifestyle. I've lived in Hollywood before, and we've moved into the old neighbourhood in West Hollywood. I love California.
What's so interesting about 'Point Break' to me is that it's a study of testosterone and adrenaline by a woman. That's why it's little more interesting than it should be.
This is real human drama, we're not creating some amusement park ride for the summer. Even though the movie is really exciting to watch, it's got a real pathos behind it.
I have this nightmare that one day I will have to look at every picture I've ever taken with people in an airport or in bars or restaurants, and it will make me very sad.
You go in and meet the head of BBC One and get an assurance about not dumbing down. And then, of course a few months later, he's been replaced by someone you haven't met.
I first decided that I wanted to act when I was 9. And I was at a very bizarre prep school at the time, to say high Anglo-Catholic would be a real English understatement.
My favorite scene on the show [The Office] is on the booze cruise when I finally get to talk to her and tell her, and I react exactly how I would react by saying nothing.
I've never really thought of myself as just an actor; I always thought of myself as aspiring to be an artist, and an artist has to take risks and put himself on the line.
We should have charity for what the dead say. We may disapprove of what they say, but we should not insult them and revile them knowing they cannot not defend themselves.
I went to Harvard and immediately fell into the theater gang, and I was already an experienced actor, so you go with the flow! I've already used the phrase "campus star."
There's no more private family than the royal family. People who can really only be themselves with each other. The rest of us just spend all our time fascinated by them.
In TV and movies, you get known for a certain thing, and that's what's expected. Onstage, people are more open to whatever character you create from one play to the next.
Calvin: I'm a genius, but I'm a misunderstood genius. Hobbes: What's misunderstood about you? Calvin: Nobody thinks I'm a genius. Corfu? It's just a poor man's Pensacola.
I grew up doing sitcoms and theater and even playing with the Beach Boys, where you're programmed to perform, your body gets into a rhythm and you know it has to perform.
I was just thinking of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe and how young they were when they died. I would like to be a pop icon who survives. I would like to be a living icon.
When kids hit one year old, it's like hanging out with a miniature drunk. You have to hold onto them. They bump into things. They laugh and cry. They urinate. They vomit.
It's amazing when you get to a certain age, and you talk about sleep in the same way you spoke about getting inebriated... I got eight hours last night. It was fantastic!
The people who voted for President Obama are just beginning to wake up to exactly what they brought in. The 'change' they envisioned is not the 'change' they have gotten.