Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't keep a record of the parts I've played, and I don't compare characters, but maybe I should? I could construct a graphic that grades badness and madness levels? Interesting idea.
My mother taught me what it is to have a sense of humour; my dad, who was a headmaster, everything you need to know about hard work. My dad is the most decent man you could come across.
What I discovered all over Ireland is that people living simple lives by the sea or in the remote countryside seem a lot calmer than city folk with their iPads and their Android phones.
Sometimes with people their work is the most important thing to them, and sometimes the work enables you to do other things that are more important to you. I probably am closer to that.
There's a film I did called 'Front of the Class', about a teacher who had Tourette's. That was a beautiful blend of drama and comedy. There's some great moments of levity in the script.
The problem with the treadmill is I just don't know what to do in my head. You either stare at the mirror or concentrate on the TV. It makes me ill because I can't relax on a treadmill.
I got to watch Anthropoid with this Czech audience and the story means so much to the Czech people so watching it with that audience was kind of terrifying but they responded very well.
I play a slave. How black is that? I have to wear chains. How whack is that? But don’t worry. I get free. I save my wife and I kill all the white people in the movie. How great is that?
When I was a kid, the people that used to push other people around, if someone whacked them, then they wouldn't be pushing people around again. But you can't really do that with adults.
I'm a huge fan of the director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and his work, and I knew he was going to be an amazing actor's director, based on the performances that I saw in his movies.
'Super Troopers' benefited from the old way of watching films, the way we watched at Colgate, when you went to someone's house, looked at their DVD collection, and then just picked one.
No, Jar Jar Binks was fine by me but probably went on a little bit too long. When they were in trouble and were battling, it should have been more serious and it became a bit too silly.
It was such a leap in my career when 'Truman Show' came along. It's always been a long process for me insofar as recognition goes, but that's OK because you appreciate it when it comes.
All there will ever be is what's happening here. Decisions we make in this moment are based on either love or fear. So many of us choose our path out of fear, disguised as practicality.
I always have been introspective, since I was a little kid, since I could remember, I was sitting in a closet trying to write out the meaning of the universe. That's been my whole life.
I don't feel any pressure to be funny at all. I'm funny because I want to be funny. I could sit here and be serious for an hour and you would go away and make me much funnier than I am.
I like to sing. I write music. Country songs. You have to if you're in Nashville. It's part of the lease. You sign a lease that says, I will write country songs and pay my rent on time.
Of course you draw from yourself, but the artistic nourishment you want to get is be versatile, do something different, and I think I got a chance to do that in a lot of different ways.
Sometimes I think being an actor is like being a dog for a director; it's like they throw a stick, and you want to fetch it and bring it back to them. You want a pat on the head for it.
I always say it takes as much preparation and thought to do a small part as a leading part. In some ways, leads are easier because you have the luxury of time to discover the character.
The worst thing for a kid is to move around and switch schools, but as an actor, you go from job to job, meeting strangers and becoming very close right away. I've become adept at that.
I never quite understand why we watch the news. There doesn't really seem much point watching somebody tell you what the news is when you could quite easily listen to it on the radio...
I have died in so many spectacular ways, and I remember shooting them all, too. I imagine all those deaths will flash in front of me when I'm on my death bed, faced with the real thing.
Growing up I didn't want to be an actor. I sort of didn't want to go into the family business; the main reason being there was something I wanted to do far more, which was be an artist.
I didn't have parents, so I lived in people's homes... And because I grew up with no parental role models, I learned to become my own friend, eventually my own father and my own mother.
And may the best of you - for it will only be the best of you, and even then only in the rarest and briefest moments - succeed in framing that most basic of questions, 'how do we live?'
I get a lot of letters from French lady admirers - and gentlemen. 'Midsomer' is a huge hit in France, and it's all down to the guy dubbing me into French - a middle-aged balding fellow.
Maybe, I got a sense when [Star Wars] came out, and there were always these lines around the block. We didn't understand the popularity of Cheers until maybe five years into the series.
I don't think anybody's necessarily ready for death. You can only hope that when it approaches, you feel like you've said what you wanted to say. Nobody wants to go out in mid-sentence.
My job, as an actor, is to give the director options. You can only hope that the takes that you thought were the best were chosen. But, then again, if I don't watch it, I'll never know.
It's always a really great thing to have an actor that does make you want to up your game. It naturally motivates you to do and try things that maybe you wouldn't necessarily do or try.
I do need to explore my faith, because it has got lost over the years and it has been kind of tainted through experience. But I also know it's enriched my life, my dad being a Catholic.
A whole generation was raised to learn about comedy from The Simpsons. To get to be in a booth with Homer and Marge and be in Springfield - it was unimaginable the emotions that I felt.
You can track elections by who was playing that president on 'SNL' at that time. There's the theory that the more likable or charismatic impression would help get the president elected.
I wanted to branch out into American television, specifically because you get to develop a character for a longer period of time and you get to develop a relationship with the audience.
I have three brothers and they're all into computers. They're all intellects. My mother would pay me a quarter a page to read a book and I couldn't make 50 cents. I just couldn't do it.
A lot of times, we're just sold these movies that are really cynically conceived and marketed, and they just want you there opening weekend, before everybody finds out it's not so good.
It's still a bottom-line business. You can be out of control, and if they want you, they'll pick you. And you can be a mensch, and if you're not the product they want, you won't get it.
I was working at a non-profit for five years. But I could always create music after work. All throughout those years, I was writing songs and recording music and performing around town.
Being a melting pot is what I think is great about being American, and also that we get to do something that other people don't get to do, we get to be a hyphenate. That's a good thing.
I'd love nothing more to play a strong leading male in a Marvel thing. I read they are about to make comic book hero Captain Britain and I thought that would be an amazing part to play.
In any given project, there are a few moments where there is the usual disappointment, as it were, when you look in the mirror, and you realize you're not 23 and looking like Brad Pitt.
My dad was an architect, and he wasn't a rich guy, but in our little world in Philadelphia, he was famous. He loved to see his picture in the paper. I wanted to be more famous than him.
I did a year of 'Guiding Light', and I was going to be a movie actor or a stage actor, but not a TV actor. That just wasn't going to happen. And obviously, things changed so remarkably.
If you want to appeal to everyone, you can't do a world tour and expect black people to show up at every date - when you're in Australia, when you're in Dubai, when you're in Indonesia.
The legal profession, politics and acting are very closely tied: the whole point is to have an idea and get it across to a listener, whether it is one person or five thousand in a hall.
For kids growing up now, there's no difference watching 'Avatar' on an iPad or watching YouTube on TV or watching 'Game of Thrones' on their computer. It's all content. It's just story.
There does seem to be in the U.S. now an ideology and an entrenchment that has stopped people doing what they are hired to do, which is govern rather than run for office the whole time.
When you're a young actor you like to go for characters with a bit of flair, so in many films I ended up playing the weirdos. I can assure you I'm not a psycho or a criminal or a bully.
The Professional Children's School, it's for professional kids, so if you wanted to ditch, you could just write, Audition on a note and leave. I didn't really like school all that much.