Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
A job is something we do to get a paycheck and pay our bills. Jobs are legitimate, at times, but work is why we are here in the universe. Work and calling often go together.
Soul is our appetite, driving us to eat from the banquet of life. People filled with the hunger of soul take food from every dish before them, whether it be sweet or bitter.
I've read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, 'Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.' I don't want to be part of that.
In television or a movie I bring my own ego and consequently can mess up. In the theatre I learnt very quickly to shut up and listen. Now I am able to get out of my own way.
When I watch movies with my kid like 'Shrek,' I'm like, 'Wow, this is pretty funny.' That's why I wanted to start doing movies like that - so my kid would laugh at my jokes.
I think anyone in New York City could look at Luke Cage and say, 'Hey, this guy could help me out.' I don't want him to just seem like a relevant hero for only black people.
The main reason I got into comedy was in the hope that I could make a few people laugh and feel better about life, and the fact that I do that is quite overwhelming, really.
If you can dress as a stormtrooper and go to a laundromat, or wear a sexy cheese gown in public, you might start to find "normal" social interactions a little less daunting.
I paid my way through college as a carpenter and a woodworker. So I've built the house I live in and most of the furniture that's in it, and I do a lot of woodworking still.
I take a lot of pride in the work I do, because people pay to see me. They've go to get babysitters, park their car, get popcorn and candy. I've got to be conscious of that.
My mother never cursed at home; my father never cursed at home. My father didn't drink. Even though we were poor, we would say a blessing over the table. So that's who I am.
I'm lucky that I got to start acting when I was so young, and people put me in these movies. A lot of people don't get to play these parts because they start a little older.
When you're 19, getting a girl to say yes, or being a dog, or being a player, cheating. Consent is all about - for me, back then - if you can get a girl to say yes, you win.
My mother always tells me, 'Nathan, you're very much a geek, but your strength is that you look mainstream. So no one can tell just by looking at you.' I think this is true.
Not to sound too pessimistic, but I just don't see me having the film career that I maybe hoped for after 'The Birdcage.' I think people just didn't know what to do with me.
I'll eat anything. I ate antelope once in Swaziland. I didn't know what it was until I'd started chewing it. Everything tastes like chicken though doesn't it? It wasn't bad.
About the only thing that'll stay with you that you can trust all your life is your breath. Your breath will be there at the very last, because when it stops, you will stop.
My all-time favorites that I always go back to are films by the director John Cassavetes. The movies he made, the work he left behind, have been a big influence for my work.
There was a time when all the actors were saying, 'We should get residuals on videogames.' I just kept going, 'You don't have any idea what goes into making a game, do you?'
I'm not saying that I don't like the success of the job, but I really like going to work every day and I really like coming home and feeling satisfied with what I did today.
I have a personal little routine that I do in my dressing room just to kind of get myself mentally prepared to go on stage, and part of that is a poem that I read to myself.
The most personal thing I've put in [Touch of Evil] is my hatred of the abuse of police power. It's better to see a murderer go free than for a policeman to abuse his power.
There's very few geniuses that come and revolutionize everything. For the rest of us that want to be artists and have something to say, it's a lot of work and a lot of luck.
I like most of the Humphrey Bogart movies because they had to act then, and they acted very well. Edward G. Robinson is probably the best actor I've ever seen on the movies.
I'll work with Jerry Seinfeld any day of the week. Get a nice little paycheck there, but you do it for free. It's just good to be associated with that man. He's a great guy.
Reading the script [Insane Farting Corpse], by page two or three, I felt that way. I thought, I'm in. It was so beautiful and insane and funny and I wanted to see it happen.
I volunteered at a homeless shelter in preparation for 'Being Flynn,' and when I'm walking along the Bowery, that's the first thing that comes to mind. That's a nice memory.
I've seen people, where if they have to wait around the set for three hours, and they call you at the wrong time, and they're not ready for you, some people don't like that.
I think you can make perfectly good television just from people who are genuinely interested, talking to people who genuinely know - simple as it sounds, it can be riveting.
I started working in front of the camera for the first time when I was 15 years old. I joined a soap opera. We filmed in Brooklyn, and I would skip class to shoot my scenes.
I waited a long time out in the world before I gave myself permission to fail. Please don't even bother asking. Don't bother telling the world you are ready. Show it. Do it.
It never felt real to me. I never felt I had complete ownership over Bond. Because you'd have these stupid one-liners - which I loathed - and I always felt phony doing them.
I've been identified with James Bond or Thomas Crown for so long; suave, elegant, sophisticated men in suits. it's like you've been giving the same performance for 20 years.
And although I've been very fortunate in the film work that's come my way, I need to get back to the stage. If I'm away for a maximum of two years, I feel something's wrong.
Growing up during the Depression, I worked for the Forest Service and CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). I tend to work very, very hard. I wouldn't change that for anything.
The freeways of America are like giant veins twisting and turning, rushing life from one zone to the next. The landscape is a giant body just lying there feeling the rumble.
I don't use film in the way that the great auteurs do. I use film, the camera, to record as effectively and as perceptive as I am able what I want to say through the actors.
There was that sense that as soon as a Northern Irish person opens their mouth, you go, 'Ah, terrorist,' so I refused to do TV and film. Instead, I did theatre for 20 years.
I know I have this kind of teaching element in me, but I don't want to become a 'teacher of theater' because that would formalize something that I'd much rather keep casual.
I had a schoolmaster who was a supernumerary at Glyndebourne Opera, and through ,I got a job as a walk-on in Peter Hall's production of 'Don Giovanni' there in 1975 or 1976.
I'm basically a movie actor now, and my big roles are mostly horror movies - unless I'm doing a guest star or something - and occasionally I try to get back into television.
Generally speaking, I went through that. I came to a place where I realised what true value was. It wasn't money. Money is a means to achieving an end, but it's not the end.
You can't completely control the sport - Tiger Woods comes close. The test is against yourself and nature's own way. I find golf a particularly good metaphor for this story.
Jamie Kilstein is amazing and I will be spreading the word. He has the spark that energized my conscience. We need more comedians kicking it hard the way he does every night
I never thought about settling down. I was obsessed with my career - I was blinkered. I finally met a woman who was worthy of me. Then we settled down and had many children.
Having an automobile in Los Angeles enables me to change clothes at least three times a day: I will go from western wear to nautical to Savile Row in the course of 12 hours.
From childhood, we're trained to be a certain way, to behave a certain way - so that the power base can control us, really. And punk and drag are completely outside of that.
I never once dreamed of sort of being able to be in an American TV series, you know? It was all about theater and touring and sort of being an actor around Scottish theater.
When you hire somebody, you shouldn't have to tell them [a lot of what] to do; you hire them because you like their work and all you've got to do is tweak them a little bit.
The guy that picked me up at the airport in 1985 when I was out in L.A. for my first audition was selling a script. I was a nobody coming off a plane to read for a new show.