Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When I moved to Los Angeles, aged 54, I printed out Winston Churchill's phrase, 'Never, never, never give up', and stuck it on my fridge. I had no idea what was going to happen, but I knew I had to keep on going.
It was a very interesting challenge [Heihei role] because he's limited to rooster-y, chicken-type noises, and he goes along on the whole adventure. It just becomes, "If that's how you express yourself, go for it.
We have far more options for black Americans to tell stories outside of slavery, but whenever it comes to slavery, it's an uncomfortable subject. Why? Because it's the most unresolved subject in American history.
I have to remember that I didn't have to become an actor. I didn't have to put myself in this position. If I'd wanted to have autonomy - if that was what I was after - then I could have chosen another profession.
I found at an early age the times when I learned the most about myself was when I got thrown out there on a stage in front of a microphone when you didn't really want to be out there, where you're kind of afraid.
I used to just daydream all the time about being in movies, from the age of like, four onwards. I would sit down and watch movies with my father and my grandfather, and always pretended that I was in the stories.
I wanted revenge; I wanted to dance on the graves of a few people who made me unhappy. It's a pretty infantile way to go through life - I'll show them - but I've done it, and I've got more than I ever dreamed of.
We're always looking over our shoulders, 'what they will think, what the press will think, what will this one - am I making the right career move?' When you're young you have to do all that to survive, I suppose.
I've done 480-odd films, have my own acting school, won awards, etc. and now host a successful TV chat show - what else can I ask for? Yes, of course, every journey has its ups and downs, but that's part of life.
I think directing yourself is a monumental task. Just to self edit as an actor, you work for some directors who don't give you a lot of feedback so you have to do that. That's a difficult thing to do as an actor.
I really think that you have to find a partner that compliments you and is somebody that pushes you and is better at some things than you are, so they can push you to improve yourself as a person. That's my take.
Until the world in some way changes, then my responsibility is to share what I know and more importantly to behave like I know about the extraordinary work and effort and blood shed for me to be able to sit here.
Maybe there are logical reasons for a gay person not to have a great relationship with their parents - not because there's a parent who made him gay, but just because it may be difficult to understand everything.
The most amazing thing is when you find yourself watching someone in the café or something doing something weird. It's amazing what people do, isn't it, when you just look at them, when you take the time to look.
You wrestle one night, get up the next morning and fly out to the next city. You try to work out, you try to get some food into you and, lo and behold, you have to go work again. You are living out of a suitcase.
I'm going to make an appearance in professional wrestling, but it won't be for the WWE. If I put wrestling boots and wrestling trunks on one last time - and I'm going to - it's going to be done by me and me only.
I thrive on physical confrontation. It's a competitive juice in me. I'm always going to have that in the back of my mind. So whether I'm 49, 59, 69 or 109, I'm always going to think that I can go out and compete.
We used to have a photo of me in full clown makeup taken when my son was 5. And when he was 17 or 18, he said, 'Yeah, that thing used to scare me. I hated that photo.' So it is scary; clowning is scary to people.
I did this play, 'Expedition 6,' that I worked on for three years in between other things. It was a good, interesting time for me because I trained as a theater director, and I went back, and we toured it around.
In high school, I was the class comedian as opposed to the class clown. The difference is the class clown is the guy who drops his pants at the football game, the class comedian is the guy who talked him into it.
It is so weird to be on this side of that, because when you're starting out, and it seems like you're starting out for so long, you look up to the people who have made their mark. And you sort of want to be that.
People treat you like s*** when you're a doorman or a busboy. I licked envelopes for eight hours a day for this management company and cried half the time I was there while the managers were on the phone working.
I come from an improv background, so the one thing I know when I'm doing 'Chozen' is that whatever he's doing at that exact moment is the only thing he's thinking about, and he will do it until he's conquered it.
I'm really excited to be a part of it and sharing the legacy, any documentary I look up at the sky and Kevin Burns did and Bryan did and showed me again you know the history that's in this character and you know.
I don't exactly fit well in leather pants, so I don't rock that look. I lost my hair a long time ago, so no hair-metal look, either. I had hair down to my belly button at one point, but I think that was the '90s.
In Hitchcock's eyes the movement was dramatic, not the acting. When he wanted the audience to be moved, he moved the camera. He was a subtle human being, and he was also the best director I have ever worked with.
Movies, I don't really get the bad guys. In theater, I get more bad guys. Both audiences and directors are more willing... to allow people to stretch. In movies, you do one thing, and then that's their reference.
Nature is a big part of my weekend. Whenever possible, I take Friday and Monday off and spend four days outdoors. We should remind ourselves that there was something here before us, a force more powerful than us.
Part of the criteria for doing a project is that it's scary or challenging because at some point you go, 'It's too scary; it's too challenging. I don't want to do it.' But things that seem easy are never any fun.
I live in New York full time. I can't live in L.A., because I fear people think I'm a vagrant there. If you show up in L.A. with your shirt inside out or socks mismatched, people start putting change in your cup.
When they call you and say, 'So you want to play 'Black Panther?'' if you know what 'Black Panther' is, there's no way in the world you're going to say no because there's a lot of opportunity for magic to happen.
Your senses are reeling all the time. Finally you find something to write and the very next day you go out and see something else which totally contradicts what you've written and every conclusion you've come to.
Starting out, I bet I didn't get a lot of parts because of my strange voice. I'm not consciously thinking, 'Hey, sound like a squeaky dog toy mixed with a bagful of rusty nails.' It's just what my voice has done.
Throughout your whole career, there's a bunch of people you might have to kiss. Say there's this character opposite you, and you might not be into her - or him, personally. You just gotta' do it. That's your job.
I've been very lucky in my employment over the years. You would think that the worst job I've ever had was as janitor, but it really wasn't, because I was a janitor at my dad's office building when I was younger.
I am an obsessive garage cleaner - my wife and the neighbors make fun of me. I remember that my father was the same way, and now when I'm out there unearthing things in the garage, I realize I am becoming my dad!
Hollywood is like living in a weird bubble. A bunch of people take care of you and get you stuff, and you're the center of that little microcosmic world. You start believing that it is real and... you deserve it.
'Star Trek' scared me a lot more than 'White Jazz.' It terrified me, really. Because of the scale, the responsibility, the fact that it was this iconic character. It was the bigger challenge, so I had to take it.
You get to a point where you have to start planning, when you cross that line where you have enough value to get someone's movie made if you attach yourself to it, you have to be very thoughtful and have to plan.
I feel like every time I go out I want to do a good job. I want people to say that he's just as good at stand-up as he is in some of the movies I've seen him in, so I try to do the best every time I go out there.
A movie star is someone people look at and go, 'I want to be like that person'. There's the responsibility of desire. It's not something I'm interested in trying. I would fail miserably at it, so why even bother?
I still think 'The Lord of the Rings' is the greatest literary achievement in my lifetime. Like so many other people, I couldn't wait for the second and then the third book. Nothing like it had ever been written.
I take this art very seriously and passionately. I love what I do. You can't help but grow. That's not to say you don't make mistakes or make bad choices, but that's part of the art. Painters paint bad paintings.
The last time I did a movie that needed a horse, I said: 'If it moves, I'm out of here.' The worst thing is, they know when you're afraid and act up accordingly. I've had them run off on me. Horses I do not like.
There's not a lot of talking between actors - either between actors or between actors and directors. People think that they sit in rooms and talk about psychology and motivations. I don't think that happens much.
I think if you do something effectively whether you're the lover or the comic or the action guy or the villain like I play; movies are very expensive to make. Chances are you'll get asked to play that part again.
I love researching, whether it's old Western documentaries or old Western country singers or John Ford Westerns, which are heavily influenced by family values, which so many of these country songs are related to.
I'm not really conservative. I'm conservative on certain things. I believe in less government. I believe in fiscal responsibility and all those things that maybe Republicans used to believe in but don't any more.
A lot of people when they retire, they just expire. It happens to men more than women. Women usually have great interest in the family, because the family's always growing and they're always coming to the rescue.
I could, I think, quite easily have gone to Oxford. I got four good A levels, but my father's income was such that I wouldn't have got a grant, and he wouldn't let me go to university, and that was the end of it.