Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we - we own this country. We - we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.
'Planet Earth' was such an extraordinary series and the 'Making Of'... is fascinating: the creatures and stories behind the camera are just as fascinating as those in front. It's a bit of a dream come true to be a part of the team in some small way.
I grew up middle class - my dad was a high school teacher; there were five kids in our family. We all shared a nine-hundred-square-foot home with one bathroom. That was exciting. And my wife is Irish Catholic and also very, very barely middle class.
The idea of regretting not doing this seemed insane to me. Sitting in the corner at a bar at age 60, saying: 'I could've been Bond. Buy me a drink.' That's the saddest place I could be. At least now at 60 I can say: 'I was Bond. Now buy me a drink.'
There is something inherently valuable about being a misfit. It's not to say that every person who has artistic talent was a social outcast, but there is definitely a value for identifying yourself differently and being proud that you are different.
It's weird, because everywhere I go, people yell, 'Grasshopper!' or 'Bill!' but down there in Mexico or Colombia or anywhere in South America or most of Europe, people will yell, 'Serpent's Egg!' And I'll go, 'Wow, man, these people are really hip.'
I kind of dread any kind of critical response, just because it's always painful in some way. Even if it's 80 percent good, it's the 20 percent that's bad that you remember - and that's a higher number than I usually get, 80 percent would be amazing.
I was going to be a concert pianist, and when I was in high school, my parents were scared to death that I would focus too much on that too soon. And that I'd end up in some sort of dead end, and not fulfilling whatever potential they thought I had.
I have no interest in Twitter or Twotter or Twatter. It would never occur to me to use it. People who Tweet during programmes are always asking, 'What happened then?' If you're bloody Twittering away all the time, you miss what is actually going on.
I was a teenager and it was tough years for me. Being able to bring myself into a character and live in somebody else's world was so important for me emotionally. I couldn't express things well in my normal life. I was so overwhelmed by my emotions.
I think the film is beautifully realised. His legacy as a journalist was recorded - as it were - well, and certainly the important issues of the '50s - or even today - are delivered and presented to the audience in a rather honest and objective way.
With any video you see online, like with YouTube, you gotta watch an ad, and that's gotta stop. And I think it'll stop by...the shitty network shows they put out will just have the ads in the shows. The characters will be eating Cheetos or whatever.
I moved away when I was young, when I was about 19. I'd literally come from an area with dirt roads and stuff like that, right to the centre of a city of about five million people. It's been great. I'm based in New York, and every day, it's amazing.
L.A. is such a different place. I miss New York so much. I almost teared up when I came back and wanted a Guinness and realized I could drink it and take a cab home. I remembered that I could be a functional alcoholic in New York, like I used to be!
One of the great things about a TV series is that it's different to a movie - in a movie you obviously know the beginning, the middle and the end of what you're going to do. With a TV series it's unfolding, and you're discovering with every episode.
That's the reality of my life - I do normal things and then get to go to film festivals and wear borrowed clothes and turn up at premieres and talk about things I am passionate about. But then you click back to normality and your family and friends.
See, I don't get the sense that you need to direct at all. Sometimes I get the opposite sensation from you, that you're like, "I really should go do something else." But then you are drawn back in by a particular story, like a hangnail in the brain.
On an animated television series, you pretty much read the script as written. Whereas on an animated feature, you'll sometimes record the same scene multiple times over the course of a year as the filmmakers continue to tweak that part of the movie.
I do know something about the news world. I was sitting on the floors of newsrooms since I was seven years old, and I've been around them my whole life. I understand that someone looks at a story with famous people in it, and you want to put it out.
So many actors get caught up in their technique, and to be honest, I see it really getting in the way. I see them forcing things. I definitely do my best work when I'm free of that. But I think as an actor, I work really hard in preparing the roles.
It was extremely useful to grow up in front of the camera. It gives the camera no significance. I think it helped me have perspective on things. The attraction that Hollywood can have, I feel like I'm over that. Instead I just concentrate on acting.
I'm challenged to races. Never a stranger. I've had a good friend of mine who, to be honest, is tiny and, like, should have assumed that I could have beat him, that I'm faster than him, and then crew members, two different crew members. I'm 3 and 0.
They told me that the hotels had maybe two rooms set up for people with disabilities, but if they got there too late, and didn't get one of these rooms, they couldn't take a shower. The room wasn't hooked up for them, or maybe the sink was too high.
I always improvise with the crowd. Sometimes it will be a 50 percent show, sometimes 70 percent, sometimes it's almost a whole show where I wing it. It depends on my mood, the energy in the room. For sure, a portion of it is just kind of winging it.
When I went into 'Fiddler,' I wondered about the response I'd get - the backlash because I'm openly gay. There was none. I toured Canada and America, and not one single review suggested that I played the role gay or that I seemed anything but Tevye.
A lot of times in life, it's personal choices that you're making, actively, and then there's a myriad of forces and circumstances that are out of our control. And without even realizing it, you're riding a wave of events that you have no control of.
My dad was the only son from his entire family to come to America, and I was his only son. We had come to the States to achieve security and success for our family. Rules were simple: No fun, no friends, no girls. Go to school, come home, and study.
When I do a movie, I have the script. I know how it begins and how it ends. I know what my character does and where he's going. If I have ideas I want to express or changes I want to make, there's one guy: the director. It's different in television.
If you have a smothering parent, the effect it can apparently have on a child is to give them, in equal doses, a sense of too much self-esteem, because they are mummy's little princess or prince, and low self-esteem. It affects future relationships.
Any skills that I have, I couldn't really make money with them. I would like to think that maybe I would be doing something in psychology or something of that nature because I love that vein of medicine - the getting down and getting nitty - gritty.
Imagine trying to be a gay actor, a gay anything in modern Russia? Where to be positively oneself, to be affectionate in public with someone you love of the same gender, or to talk of that love in the hearing of anyone under 18, will put you prison?
My career actually started in the second grade as class clown. That's no joke. I was always making people laugh, and it was really to mask a learning disability... When it came time for me to read out loud, I would crack jokes or create a diversion.
Whatever you want to do in the industry, do it on the smallest level at first. If you want to be a writer, write a screenplay in your house. If you want to be an actor, put on a one-man show. If you want to be a stand-up comedian, go to an open mic.
I think a lot of people get lost. They start following iconic figures and get drowned in the pool of celebrity. Our society, as we know it, is definitely changing. With social media and cell phones, you freak out when you don't know what's going on.
Certain jobs [films] are for the business really, because they get an audience, they get a global audience. Certain jobs are as an artist. If I can keep moving forward and strike some form of balance between them two, then I'm going to feel content.
My dad is a huge folk music fan, so growing up, there were always records playing in my house. Carole King, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles - I grew up with this music, and I was aware of how special this music was to a lot of people.
The inclusiveness of the Drama League luncheon is one of the most exciting things about it. I get to see old friends and meet new friends. Of course I can't tell who anybody is if they're under the age of 75. So my old friends become my new friends.
I have a lot of books optioned. This one sat around for a while - part of that was just because I was trying to figure it out, and I didn't realize I needed Pam to figure it out - but I'm not somebody that likes to option books and then sit on them.
I'm friends with a lot of Brits, and they tell me when they're over here what a huge phenomenon 'The Wire' has become. Some things just attain critical mass after they're already dead and buried, and I don't know why it was the case with 'The Wire'.
As soon as I knew we were going to be doing tribute episodes, and as soon as I knew the landscape of 'Psych' allowed us to do homages, the show creator and I both had respective dreams. His was a musical episode, and mine was a 'Twin Peaks' episode.
With hacky sack, somebody brought one to recess in sixth grade and it kind of all went downhill from there! The same with the yoyo's! One kid brought a yoyo one day and people started getting them. I just kept at it and found that I really loved it.
I turned up my nose at yoga for years. I was a rugby player growing up. But now I know. When I'm on those long international flights, like 22 hours from L.A. to Sydney, I'll get up sometimes and do yoga in the aisle just to stretch out a little bit.
I was emotionally and physically punched in the stomach. This is not a place where you go and deliver the lines and then you come back. It's kind of a life-changing experience. But it can't get better than this for any actor - this is like an opera.
Well, Well, Well, its certainly a compelling provocative exciting delicious to think about idea, smart people say the universe is so big there must be something statistically it could be likely there could be something happening on some other world.
Diamonds are created through the pressures of earth and then have to go through a million dirty roads to get to the cutter who turns it into a beautiful massage. And that's like human beings. They go through a lot to be who they are in front of you.
I like challenges and I don't believe in failure. I don't believe in regrets. I believe suffering, failure - all those concepts - are things that are absolutely necessary to make us the best people that we can be, the best at whatever we want to do.
I have spiritual beliefs that I could literally go out and make an entire comedy routine about, and tour as some sort of spiritual guru, but it kind of goes against that [as] I actually believe the things, so I'm always kind of caught in the middle.
My choices in projects have all been character or role-based, and on a financial level, it's obvious: as an actor on a TV series, I get a wonderful paycheck, and a consistent paycheck, which doesn't always happen when you're doing theater or movies.
The reason we're getting bombed is 'cause we were on one side, and we're gonna remain on that side. We can't waver because these are our enemies right now. I'm sorry. I'm gonna say it out loud. The Arabs, that's right, are our enemies. That's right.
Animal rights is a part of my everyday life. When you live by example, you create a certain level of awareness. Friends of mine - people I have never discussed animal rights or vegetarianism with - are adopting vegetarian habits because they see it.