Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My tutors at drama school commended and criticised my use of comedy in my acting for a long time at drama school. They said I had a tendency to somehow perform the most tragic of scenes in a slightly flippant way.
If you go for the money first and try to think of what other people want to see, you change your original inspiration and perhaps put out something that's less original and less personal and maybe less satisfying.
Movies may be as close to a document of our national culture as there is; they're supposed to represent what we believe ourselves to be. So when you don't see yourself at all - or see yourself erased - that hurts.
I loathed school. I don't have an academic mind, and besides I was so bored by my teachers! How teachers can take a child's inventiveness and say yes, yes, in that pontifical way of theirs, and smother everything!
As an actor ages north of 60, he tends to be in more father roles than anything else. It's generational. And it tends to be a relationship that fascinates people, the flawed relationships between parents and kids.
One thing I have is that I have never been afraid to expose myself in a way, and I really think I got that from my mother. That's a great gift you can give to a child, that they have confidence in their abilities.
I actually did do a musical many years ago with John Waters called Cry-Baby, but technically it was only half me - it wasn't me singing. Tim's [ Burton] the only person brave enough to actually let me try to sing.
There's this idea that it has to be made in London. But we've got everything up here, and if you've got comics who are gifted because of where they're from, you shouldn't drag them away from that natural resource.
I think acting is a gift. I look at someone like Ben Kingsley, and hes incredibly charismatic, even when hes not acting. Hes an incredibly hard worker, and he has a very specific system that he does with his work.
I think vampires have gotten maybe a little bit silly in the last years where they're all wearing crushed velvet and reading poetry and making sweet love to their victims, you know, it's not really all that scary.
Once everyone else around you starts to become incredibly comfortable - if anything, quite happy with what you are doing - then I start to settling in and trusting all those choices that I've made up to that point
I would love to start directing. I just hope to find the right thing and, if I was afforded the opportunity, I think it would be something great. It would be really hard, but I think it would be a great privilege.
I find myself going out less and less. When you're 22 and see older people start to do that, it's depressing, but once you hit 30, you think, 'Wow, I've been working all week - it might be really nice to stay in!'
I am in awe, in admiration of the man who Gaius Julius Caesar was. I don't actually do him as the man himself. He is maybe a distant relative. It's hard to approach the real man because he is such an awesome icon.
I just really hope that Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema can resolve all their differences. I'm hoping that's going to happen, but we'd have to wait and see. I would love to explore Middle Earth again with Peter.
A child is a reinvigorating experience. It almost does feel like immortality, but not in the way people think. It reminds us there are universal truths that are most simply seen through the mind of a young person.
I had a friend who introduced me to a meditation practice which involves a couple of half-hours a day of meditation, where essentially you try to achieve a stillness that allows you to just be there in the moment.
There are people who tell you to shut up because you're just a celebrity, but pundits, talking heads, they're every bit the celebrity and a lot of them aren't any more qualified than the average man on the street.
We stand our best chance of leaving a legacy to those who want to learn, our children, by standing firm. In matters of style, hey, swing with the stream. But in matters of principle, you need to stand like a rock.
I had one incident where my daughter said that a girl asked if she was a brown person. I said, 'We're black. You have black people, white people, Chinese people, Hispanic people; we're all brought up differently.'
I probably could have gone in depth about a lot of things, but then the album would've been longer. You can't have a short album when you're talking about suicide and cocaine. That's not going to be a short album.
I think just in general there's a bunch of films that mattered to me that didn't reach their potential, and on some level you have to assume responsibility for that. And I think over the years that gets difficult.
I might go visit it one day, but I couldn't do any more than just visit. I love it, don't get me wrong, but it's just too big. I'm going to be at a lot of other conventions this year, with the book and everything.
It's like with a girl: it's more fun to meet and slowly, gradually learn things about each other. A little mystery is always nice and it's interesting to still learn new things about someone you are involved with.
I'm in a fortunate position that sometimes you just get offered roles - they're not necessarily the roles you take, but to get offered a film is amazing. I think the work you've done before that is why you get it.
Much like anyone with too much time on his or her hands, I feel as though I am the most important person on earth and everything I do is relevant. I say the most charming and inspired things when no one is around.
I was always sort of ahead of myself in some way, shape or form and trying to envision how to get further along and closer to fulfilling that dream of being of being free and having a creative agency, so to speak.
I'm so sad that I'm old enough to play, and I'm so grateful that I am. All that clichéd things, you really do learn something if you get the luck of being able to hang around. Even if it's a rough ride, you learn.
I used to hang out in my dad's workshop on weekends. Later, when I was starting out as an actor, I became a roofer and a framer to make money. But what I really enjoyed was the finished work. I like the longevity.
My wife and I are connoisseurs of films but in opposite directions. She's a connoisseur of really good, classy foreign films. I'm a connoisseur of really bad, cheesy horror movies - so-bad-it's-good horror movies.
And my mother caught wind of this. She never had really tried to guide my career or really had any say in my life as an adult, but this was the one time she said she would never speak to me again if I quit acting.
Folks should be able to harvest, store, use, or sell their own energy as they see fit. This is not a Democratic nor Republican issue, and if anyone tries to convince you it is, they are being purposely misleading.
I never used to get photographed and people asking for autographs. I don't mind the autographs, but the paparazzi I find weird. As an actor, you want to be able to regard the world instead of having it regard you.
Not all Peter Greenaway's stuff is sequential, narrative story. Some of it is like an art installation and I'm not particularly interested in being in an art installation to be honest. I'm interested in the story.
Clean water is only as far away as the nearest tap, and there are taps everywhere. There's a faucet everywhere. But the reality is, the water in our toilets is cleaner than the water that most people are drinking.
If you're just an actor you're reactive. You're saying, "Well, I hope Hollywood gives me a role, or gives me a chance at a role," whereas if you can generate your own content, then you can go where you want to go.
Actually, that's one of the things I was thinking about writing a story about me, loosely based or autobiographical. I just don't want to be like some people that are in their twenties and writing autobiographies.
Yes, I believe in equality. But I don't like the word 'feminist,' because it's such a rational belief to think that women are equal to men, and I'm a rational person. You shouldn't be labeled for being reasonable.
So I never spend a lot of time analyzing why people respond to my work. But I think that it's just the joy, a passion for life, that I think has always been in my characters. Beyond that, I'm just grateful for it.
I was fresh out of drama school and had no idea what I was doing. They hustled me along and Bill Cosby tolerated my rookie behavior. It was great. Once you have 'The Cosby Show' on your resume, you can keep going.
One thing I was thinking about is that they probably get their come-uppance about the same percentage that people in real life do. Basically, stealing for all practical purposes might as well be legal in New York.
They're talking about kids who have grand mal seizures, and they've discovered that marijuana eases that down to where these children can have a life. That right there, to me, says, 'Legalize it across the board!'
I'm a passionate person. I'm a lot of things, like most people are. Most people are dynamic. The focus is not on me though, I'm a screen. The aim is to always keep myself in the position where the screen is clear.
God is on my side, and that's all I need. I get up in the morning, I pray to God. I don't pray to the president, the governor, the mayor, no black caucus, no this and that. I pray to God, and that's the end of it.
Sadly, black people disassociate ourselves from the things which make us who we are, identifying them as lesser, or inferior. It's a form of self hate. So, with reckless abandon, we strive to be like the majority.
I kind of fell backwards into acting. I was studying to be a high school teacher. I look now and I understand completely, or actually barely, how much work it is to be a teacher. It's an incredible amount of work.
Quite often, we're swamped with friends. My house is known as Hotel Morrissey, which is quite handy whenever I need dog-sitters for Tiggy. She's my tiny little rescue dog, the size of both of my feet put together.
I think a lot of podcasts have a lot of amazing character work. Seth Morris does this amazing character, Boch Duco, which I think is one of the funniest, most well-realized characters that I've ever seen or heard.
Hopefully as a result of 'The Frozen Ground,' more and more people will be aware of the horrible things that happen to ladies all over the world and give them respect. This movie is a love letter to those victims.
I think that's important for all ages, to not be afraid of being an individual. I grew up on my own, as an only child, so early on I think I was quite capable of making decisions by myself and being an individual.