Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I love actors. I love working with actors. I really enjoy the process. I love having those in-depth discussions about the interior of their character, and actors really love to discuss that too.
By nature, I think I am a pretty private person, and that is what is hard even doing interviews for films that I really love doing, because in some ways, it diminishes the experience that I had.
I like all kinds of music. I listen to Abigail Washburn, the Punch Brothers, and Marc Johnson, the great clawhammer player. I also listen a lot to Sirius Radio, there's a lot of bluegrass there.
There's a big difference between the National Book Awards and the Academy Awards. At the Academy Awards you can feel the greed and envy and ego. Whereas the National Book Awards are in New York.
Theories, for me, are just about freeing your mind. It doesn't mean the theory is going to work like a scientific theory works. It's about freeing your mind and making you think a different way.
Being the father of girls is a kind of illness, in its own way - since any guy who has tried to live in a house with a wife and two daughters is, without any doubt, going to go certifiably nuts.
I have a daughter from a relationship I had in my late teens or early 20s. Because I felt it wasn't the kind of pukka behaviour my family or relatives would admit to, I denied it for many years.
I found out in pro wrestling that it works better if you just try and be yourself versus working on something you're not, so I'm me and maybe it's magnified a bit, but it's easier just being me.
When I came to WWE back in the day, I'd been working seven-and-a-half years, and I was very frustrated. I started getting some momentum, and my work was very vicious, and it was very believable.
What I'm trying to do now in my life - not just with the building, but with everything - is to construct things that will have enduring qualities, and won't just be ephemeral flashes in the pan.
The champion's management says let's do this for real, for charity. Rocky says no but decides to be true to himself even though he's going to be berated by everyone. Just to compete, not to win.
Funny is as funny does, and funny puts on a walrus mask and slowly gyrates in a mall food court. I laugh at absurdity hardest, then stories, then observations, then bearded men on roller skates.
There's sketch, improv, writing, acting, music, and badminton. Those are the seven forms of comedy. But I do like the idea of being an auteur in the sense of writing and being in your own stuff.
I'm trying to make enough money where I can be financially independent and be able to go and just pursue that thing that everybody really needs, just pursue my family and the cause of my family.
I'm interested in the impact my movies have on people and how it affects them, and what they like and what they don't like - and what they take away from it. What leaves an impression, you know?
Vice president is the bridesmaid, and nobody cares about you. Nobody wants you. You're just in the way. You're there to play a subsidiary role. You're like the middle child or the poor relation.
I think I was a behavior problem, mostly, but in a fun way. I tried to tell jokes. I was the middle kid, so I was always looking for attention and trying to be the one that equalized everything.
I'm not into sugar for kids, but you don't want your kid to be the carrot kid. There's always the kid at the birthday parties carrying a bag of carrots. You've got to let them eat a little cake.
There I am, watching Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of my favourite actors in the world, walk into the room dressed up as Father Christmas, being hilarious, and I'm suddenly thinking, 'Where am I?'
Every project that I had an opportunity to do or chose to do, I wanted it to be different from the last thing I did, and I think that's why I have a good, I had kind of a diverse kind of résumé.
I grew up a poor kid to a single mom, so as an African-American actor I have a responsibility to hold the mirror up and reflect our stories. I'm living the dream and also escaped the inevitable.
After my father passed away in 1989, I fell pretty hard for theater as an undergraduate at the University of Oregon. Before he died, he planted the seed that maybe I should look into performing.
As life goes on I'm learning to trust myself more, so I am more comfortable - you have to be, doing things in front of people, especially when there's lots of pressure. I have to make decisions.
They [Tom Hanks and Paul Newman] were simply always high level masters, and taught me as a kid actor never to be an a*shole to anybody, because it would be very tough to get past where they are.
My job as an artist, as I see it, is to understand and in some cases to take on various ways of thinking about people and the world that are different from my own, sometimes radically different.
I was the oldest of the children in my family. I had to do a lot of diaper-changing and lunch-making. I was taking my little sister to ballet, picking up my brother, sort of being a super-nanny.
I have a huge relationship with Brazil; it's almost a love affair, I would say. And to me, to introduce that specific martial art like capoeira in Hollywood movies was something important to me.
My problem is I can't show any of my movies to my daughters. It's tough. 'Beauty and the Beast'... they liked it. But that's the only one, really. Otherwise, they've always been dark or violent.
I'm a God-fearing man, and I know the only reason why I am here going from poverty to where I am now is God has His hand on my life. I tell people, 'I didn't choose acting; God chose me to act.'
I grew up. I began to think the United States had some problems that really required the help of artistic people to solve. And I gave myself permission to be a writer instead of a civil servant.
I don't think there's anything to be admired in lying, cheating or philandering. But there might be something to be admired in not burning people at the stake because they have those weaknesses.
I had a director who told me a story about a fan who had commented on how nice it was to see her sister laughing and how happy the show made her. I like to make people happy and make them laugh.
When you make something that you're really proud of, and it doesn't do well, you can live with it. The hard part is when you make something that you have to compromise on and it doesn't do well.
In politics practically everything you hear is scandal, and besides, the funny thing is that the things they are whispering ain't half has bad as the things they have been saying right out loud.
I bet any Sunday could be made as popular at church as Easter is if you made 'em fashion shows too. The audience is so busy looking at each other that the preacher just as well recite Gunga Din.
President Coolidge said, 'I don't want the Government to go into business.' Well, if I was Mr. Coolidge I wouldn't worry over that. The Government never has been accused of being a business man.
I want to work every day. I don't work every day. When I finish something, people ask me, 'You gonna chill for a little while?' I'm like, 'No. I chill on Sunday afternoon.' I need to be engaged.
The best thing about having brothers and sisters is that they're brutally honest. My brother just got the 'Narnia' game, and first thing he does is kill me in it! Six times, over and over again!
I want to live and work in Chicago for the rest of my life. You know when you were growing up and you wanted to become president? What I want now is to be mayor of this damned town in ten years.
The mysteriousness and mystique of space is such, that science fiction attempts to tantalize you by telling you a story that could possibly be out there and that's the appeal of science fiction.
I'm gonna reveal something to you that's going to come as a shock: If you're a stupid young man, you're usually a stupid old man. Most people, including myself, keep repeating the same mistakes.
When I was 10 years old, we'd pick out a cow and boom! They'd hit it in the head with a hammer, lift it up by the back legs, and skin it in front of us. Then I'd take the head home and make soup
I'd like to be taken in charge of as an actor, not to be abandoned with asinine dialogue and meaningless actions or stereotyped characters. I'd like to feel like I'm in a character driven story.
I remember our conversations [with Zachary Quinto] always being frustrated that we weren't doing what we wanted to do, but also filled with the determination that we were going to overcome that.
It's so funny, I've done so many projects where I've been interrogated. I guest starred on almost every hour drama, and I'm always the guy they think is the bad guy but then they find out is not.
People lament that there's no roles being written for South Asian or Muslim characters. But their parents don't want their children to go into the entertainment field. You don't get it both ways.
I think politicians and comedians have a lot in common. One is a group of approval-seeking narcissists who will say and do anything to be liked... and comedians are always talking about politics.
I carry two traditional pipes and I sing my songs and pray that us as human beings treat each other with respect. So when it came to trying to portray a connection on screen, that's what you see.
When I was getting started, I was so busy just fighting my way through, and I was under contract at Warner Brothers. I did 40 hours of color television with the late Robert Taylor as a young cop.
My feeling about work is it's much more about the experience of doing it than the end product. Sometimes things that are really great and make lots of money are miserable to make, and vice versa.