Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Theatre is the principal job of an actor. An actor's job is to tell a story to someone in a room. TV and film can be great and I really love doing it, but it is a different way of telling a story.
It would be great to be able to pass on to someone all of the successes, the failures, and the knowledge that one has had. To help someone, avoid all the fire, pain and anxiety would be wonderful.
I have a lack of fear, whereas in the past the fear of failure was a powerful motivator. Anyway, I have great expectations for the future, but I just don't know if I'm the monarch of all I survey.
It's great the way the old-time directors used to manipulate the hell out of you. You see someone dying and all of a sudden a ghost would come out and they go walking hand in hand up the stairway.
I've always had this juxtaposition of characters, because I'm an artist. I'm a very quiet person at home and introspective and the whole deal, and then I can be really big later. I had no problem.
I've decided to do what I want to do in life and follow my own path as an artist, so I've decided not to participate in any sort of nostalgia in which I'm marginalized as a pop icon of yesteryear.
I'm proud of the fact that I made my way in life very rigorously. I was a bit too stubborn when it came to certain things, which was unnecessary, like getting independent from and leaving Germany.
Everybody in comedy has something like that happen to them: They bomb, or no one shows up. You're like, 'Hey, I'm funny, trust me!' And the world collectively goes, 'Yeah, you and everybody else.'
When I was a kid, at Disneyland, they used to sell Animation Cels for $5.00 at a Fantasyland store. They were called Courvoisier Cels. I was too young to be aware of just how cool that really was.
As an actor, I can still play a cop, but the bullets are fake, I don't have to get injured, and I'm not faced with the day-in-day-out of what cops have to deal with, which is tragic and dangerous.
My occupation has been a great deal with David Foster Wallace, and he didn't manage it, and he was very much looking for something that isn't totally selfish, and finding meaning. It's a struggle.
Every now and then, I feel terribly uncomfortable with what I'm working on, and then I think maybe I am an artist. I'm not very articulate about it, but I do know that you have to follow your gut.
Everyone town of 100,000 in the United States should have a Classical Theater supported by the town, or the state of the county, or the Federal Government, as they have in every civilized country.
I didn't know that there was such a thing as butter carving. But then, I poked around a little bit. A quick Google search will show you 55,000 images of butter carvings, and they're extraordinary.
There's nothing like real forgiveness, a deep-down forgiveness where you don't hold any grudges against people. I forgave for the things they didn't know and for the things they didn't know to do.
I think there's something that happens at 40 where you settle into your own skin and you stop caring what people think - you realize life is a gift from God and you want to live it to the fullest.
I did direct two short movies. I learned many things, and one of the things I learned was that I am not a director. It has to be visceral, and it's not for me. I feel much more comfortable acting.
I probably have a higher opinion of my writing than the average person, at least when I'm in a good mood, but I don't really think of my plays as only being relevant to a particular month or year.
I think Hollywood sees so many parts of America through a very narrow prism. The South is no exception. And those stereotypes, while sometimes true, are exaggerated for me to the point of boredom.
I mean, I would say I get five or six e-mails every day from people asking, "Is there going to be a Leprechaun 6?' It's probably the most asked question besides, 'Is there going to be a Willow II?
I noticed that I got a better space in the line in Starbucks when I had my tattoo. People associate tattoos with a certain edge. Then I open my mouth, and something completely different comes out.
A foreigner coming here and reading the Congressional Record would say that the President of the United States was elected solely for the purpose of giving Senators somebody to call a horse thief.
Legalize racing in every State. Sure people will bet, but they get to see the horses run and you certain can't see General Motors and General Electric and General Utility run when you bet on them.
I traveled a good deal all over the world, and I got along pretty good in all these foreign countries, for I have a theory that it's their country and they got a right to run it like they want to.
I try to speak my points of view about black America, and how I feel about black men and the role that black men should play in their lives with their children and in their lives with their women.
A sense of the unknown has always lured mankind and the greatest of the unknowns of today is outer space. The terrors, the joys and the sense of accomplishment are epitomized in the space program.
I don't personally do movies for myself and a faction of very cerebral cinephiles - I do it for everybody and wish for the largest amount of people to relish whatever they find they can relish in.
I'm looking forward to playing some really despicable characters at some point in my career so I can branch out and stretch those acting muscles. But I wouldn't want to do that on a regular basis.
I've got to be honest and say that, growing up, I wasn't a big sports guy, but I love the camaraderie. I just love people getting together, fighting for a team and getting super-emotional about it.
I always focused on being an actor. I did stand-up briefly, but I also did a lot of dramatic work. But since I've been on 'The Daily Show,' people think I'm a comedian. That's not how I see myself.
In the military, you learn the essence of people. You see so many examples of self-sacrifice and moral courage. In the rest of life you don't get that many opportunities to be sure of your friends.
They think my life is glamourous. It's not true. I obviously get to come in and do radio interviews. That's the glamour. But other than that, I eat and sleep and that's it. Eat, sleep and do shows.
We're all waiting for the opportunity to do big films but you have to wait your turn - unless you get offered something like Twilight when you're 20! Otherwise, you just have to keep slogging away.
Musicians don't respect a lot of the stuff that is on TRL and a lot of musicians think that stuff on the radio is not good musically so when musicians say that they like us it obviously feels good.
In the early '90s I was floating somewhere between the Brat Pack/Andrew McCarthy/James Spader/Pretty In Pink kind of stuff and the alterna-pop look, crossed with a very distinct grunge sensibility.
In L.A., I love the L'Ermitage in Beverly Hills. Also, the Beverly Wilshire, where they make great huevos rancheros. I also love Shutters on the Beach, where I walk around everywhere in a bathrobe.
If a director can find the exact combination between the written word as a guideline and improvisational input from his actors, I think that's where you'll find the most successful work being done.
I've always felt that improv looks and feels more clever when you're there to experience it live than when you have the degree of separation that television creates. Television raises expectations.
I think all the roles I've played really center around either the great conflict or how the great conflict affects the people that I love. I've been cast often as a hard-nosed, hyper-confident guy.
So I think the fans will be totally interested in the new developments and delighted that the old developments are still there and that they can still see some of the old characters maybe reappear.
Because homecoming came first, and there was the homecoming court. The five guys on homecoming court were disqualified from being in the prom court. So being prom king was being sixth most popular.
I wanted to be a stuntman. I've done stunts since I was 11, and wanted to be able to do them whatever kind of work I ended up in. I've had a horse roll on me, but luckily, everything stayed intact.
Most of my career has been spent with the RSC doing Shakespeare, and the thing you learn from Shakespeare is that his historical plays don't bear anything other than a basic resemblance to history.
There were two auditions for The Social Network, one with Aaron Sorkin and one with David Fincher. I was a nervous wreck. I was like, Okay, how do I hold the paper without my hands making it shake?
I was 18 when I started. I was hanging out with some friends and they asked if I had tried stand-up before. I hadn't, but I thought: 'What the hell?' So I went to an open mic night, and I liked it.
Sometimes I get insecure about being a real director because I look at the great directors, and they have such command. But maybe that keeps me critical of myself. Maybe it keeps me moving forward.
I lived with this tremendous fear of failure because my father was a playwright and a director, and I think he did a couple of things as a child as an actor as well, and he... he failed, basically.
I saw David Lynch's 'The Elephant Man' when I was 15. I was completely bowled over. I found it so beautiful, strange and mesmerizing that I went back to the cinema every night for a week to see it.
Could Congress really do its work if it held its sessions by teleconferencing? Could the Supreme Court? Nothing can replace the spark of intelligence that travels from person to person at meetings.
I've made a career over the last seventeen years of mostly playing men in uniform, especially cops. The one thing for an actor that is death, is if you're bored. The boredom will show in your work.