Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I wanted to be looked at for the skateboarder that I was. I didn't want to be the 36-year-old skateboarder who's still holding on while owning a company at the same time. I wanted to make my mark and travel and accomplish a few things here and there and then get out.
I was heartbroken at the end of that, because I thought that was going to be it for me. Somehow I had worked my way into this movie and it had exposed me to people and I had a chance to be an actor, which I loved, but I didn't think it was ever going to happen again.
I was always a clown. In the eighth grade I won a city speech contest by doing an Eddie Murphy routine. I'm no good at public speaking, but if I can assume a role and speak as that person, then I'm fine. When I had to give a book report, I always did it in character.
But it's true, it's nothing new that decisions about what movies are to be made, and how they're to be made, and who's to be hired to do what, and whether you hire somebody to do their job, or whether you hire somebody to fill a position and you tell them what to do.
It's a different kind of acting, this 'Law & Order' thing. They want two partners who can play off each other well and are fun to watch, but depth of character is not necessary in this job. Too much character gets in the way of the story. This is a very specific gig.
I feel like I've lived the dream for sure, I'm the luckiest guy in the world and I never forget that. I always feel like I'm proof of positive thought and manifestation, and that faith is more important than talent. But if you have both you're really doing something.
I come from a pretty working-class neighborhood in Chicago. Hard work was just expected of you. It wasn't some noble thing you did; it was a prerequisite. It's what a man did. You get up, you put on your boots, and you work hard. We've lost a lot of that, I'm afraid.
Muslims, who have a completely different value system, come to the West, then they should accept that there are certain basic values in the West intrinsic to our culture. Just as I wouldn't suggest that any Westerner walk down the streets of Saudi Arabia in a bikini.
I kept saying that I'd never live in L.A., and I didn't think I would. But that's where the work is, and I ended up making a lot of friends there, and my old friends moved out to Los Angeles too. And also, I think when you're famous, its hard to live in a small town.
Much of what you do as an actor - it's who's around you, what's the environment, where do you fit into this thing. That's really work that's impossible to do on your own, at least for me. I find it hard to pre-plan every element of everything I do. It's not my thing.
The Beatles meant everything to me growing up, and John was part of that. I loved Lennon's persona. He knew who he was and he knew what he represented to a worldwide public... I think he incited and inspired a whole group of youth to speak out and say what they felt.
Generally the things you get offered are never things you want to do. It's a continual fight for the good parts. As you climb the ladder and get to different benchmarks, enter new stratospheres, you're just competing against all the other people in that stratosphere.
I've never gotten bitter about where I was at in my career. I've always earned enough money to put my kids through school and eat and all that, so I was never one of those guys who said, "Why am I not in this other position? Why am I not that other guy? Why am I me?"
Breakfast Club was great because we had a real rehearsal, and we shot primarily in sequence. I thought that was going to be how movies were done. I didn't really know how lucky we all were. We had a director that liked actors. I didn't know that was going to be rare.
I'm a massive comic book fan. I was buying weekly installments of "The Watchmen", and "From Hell", and "Parallax" and "Johnny Nemo". I was a huge comic book fan as a kid and I still am. Me and my youngest son are both comic book nerds together; make models and stuff.
There was a time when doing "Zoolander 2" that I was literally flying between the "Zoolander" shoot and "The Leftovers" in Texas and at that point, I was getting comedy whiplash. It was a relief, though, to get to Rome and be like, "Oh my God, I get to laugh on set."
SixDegrees.org is about using the idea that we are all connected to accomplish something good. It is my hope that Six Degrees will soon be something more than a game or a gimmick. It will also be a force for good, by bringing a social conscience to social networking.
I think, first of all, I don't think people understand Ice Cube's body of work. Ice Cube is a, and I hate to use the word 'urban' but - when you think of Judd Apatow, and a person who's launched so many careers, Ice Cube has done that for so many comedians, you know?
What I do is interpret, not create. I may add elements and do something different. That is what is so incredible about theatre. Why do we love it that there are nine Hamletsor six King Lears over two years? We love to watch a different actor attack the same material.
I saw Hulk Hogan the other day in a parking lot, and I couldn't tell from a distance if it was Hulk Hogan or not. And I realized I've never had that dilemma before. I've always been able to tell immediately when looking at anybody if they were or were not Hulk Hogan.
Frankly, I was extremely jealous of his scenes with Zoe Saldana and I think it's totally unfair that I never got to do that. I will never forgive the writers and the director, for having put me in this position, to have to be watching that, rather than participating.
I grew up when I was 15 when I had my first opportunity in movies. I watched every great movie for a year and a half, and since then I've asked myself how I can emulate such artistry. That's really my motivation. I want to do something as good as my heroes have done.
A lot of actors say that no villain wants to be a villain, generally. They don't might being evil, maybe, but they have an agenda that they can justify. Otherwise, a little bit of that tension goes, if you're just a villain and everyone hates you because you're mean.
Especially with a comedy, you've got the clear cut goal of trying to make a scene funny. It's not like drama where you're trying to achieve some kind of emotion or trying to further the story along. You're trying to figure out what's the funniest way to do something.
Oh, absolutely. James Caan was the first movie star I'd ever met, much less worked with. He was an important person to me and my brothers and Wes. Bottle Rocket was the first movie for all of us. As you know, back then, [Caan] was having some career changes, I think.
Even with the darkest and most distressing subjects in movies there's always going to be humour not far away, just under the surface. And it does help otherwise we'd just get ourselves into a massive trough of depression if there wasn't humour just around the corner.
A solid family, as they say. They join me on location if they have a chance, but I can also be home three or four months doing nothing, so I probably see my kids more than people who work constantly all year long. If that changes, we'll have to have a family meeting.
I was born in Oakland and grew up, probably about five miles from Oakland, in Hayward. And Hayward was OK. Like, Hayward wasn't - very much a working-class area and had definitely went through a decline and is now, seemingly, coming back around, which is nice to see.
My friends in college, several of whom are still my closest companions, would tell you that I was almost obsessed with becoming - fixated on creating - the future that I envisioned for myself: one of expanding to know my fullest self, which I have in no way achieved.
Okay, so, sometimes in life, I can be a score-keeper - someone who keeps track of what he gives and what he gets in return. An annoying quality, to say the least, and I'm sure my wife has your sympathy, but it's made me highly attuned to when and where credit is due.
I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture.
Heath, I believed in him when I first met him, and helped and supported him. He went on to obvious success in the States and then I had him support me. It can be a lonely, horrible, hard place. It's great just to have someone to call to say 'I know, man, I was there'
Even as we get older, we get in these routines - and routines are nice and comfortable - but I think that it's important to live life to its fullest and try different things. Because you never know what you're going to learn. You might not like it, you might like it.
Food is a huge passion of mine, and because I want to eat whatever I want, I run every morning, and then I do weights a few times a week. It's just how I can balance eating pancakes in the morning, a big burger for lunch, and then a fat steak and cheesecake at night.
My personal life is a source of incredible happiness for me, but it's personal and it's not for me to hock, or shop around to the highest bidder. Plus, it could never live up to the amazing mythology that everyone online has created for me, so I'll keep mum about it.
I remember I was really, really proud the first moment I got my insurance and also just going in to get my SAG card and filling out the form and realizing I was a member of all the unions I could be a part of as an actor. It was a really fulfilling experience for me.
Our kids are growing up with more privilege than we had; that's true for most of my friends in L.A. I don't know any actor who grew up with any particular privilege, so everyone wrestles with this. And I think, a lot of times, it's about being patient with your kids.
In terms of preparation, if there's some historical context that's needed, I do like to read a lot. Working on Joe Kennedy for 'Boardwalk,' I read a couple of biographies on him. It's nice to have a broader context of the man outside of where the show is coming from.
A fantastic actor in a scene that's just closed off will be good. But when working with a director who knows little tricks - correct music, slowly pushing in - that stunning performance will somehow become even better. I've always seen it as a symbiotic relationship.
With little knowledge of what it meant to be a Jew, I found myself passionately defending the Jewish people. Now, half a century later, I have to defend my son. Anti-Semitism, I've seen, is like a disease that goes dormant, flaring up with the next political trigger.
I went to a prep school in Chicago, and my dad and mom worked really hard - even though we lived in the ghetto - to get me to there. A lot of it had to do with 'Stand and Deliver' and 'Dead Poet's Society.' It does help you. It inspires you. It definitely did for me.
'Boardwalk' begins literally on the first day of Prohibition, which I think was a wonderful way to start - to have the story kind of come out of this massive historical phenomenon. And the more I researched the '20s, the more I discovered just how interesting it was.
Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years, it's a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment, and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name. [But] it's time to expand and move on.
I went to art school in Chicago for a year at Columbia College. I had this whole master plan of getting into sustainable development and green architecture and construction, so I wanted to go to business school and then get my masters in construction and development.
I got through with my ability to mimic others and make people laugh. I swaggered through life, but, in reality, I lived in fear pretty much every day. I acted like a completely normal person, and I suppose I was good at it. But, inside, it was a very different story.
A person who can connect with their partner, another human being who can connect with their soul − it's not just learning steps, it's about expressing something. I've found in dancing all my life that I can release something as a dancer that I can't in any other way.
My parents raised me to treat people the way you would want to be treated and to be polite. Sometimes, when I get nervous or insecure, I might overcompensate and might not be totally true to what I am feeling inside. But I get nervous and maybe too smiley and polite.
The thing I always liked about 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure' was Pee-wee's, obviously, an oddball, but nobody in that universe points a finger at him and goes, 'Look at the weirdo!' I think that's why weirdo, arty kids like it so much: because it's sort of like a utopia.
I know that obviously, that if you want to get the story, if you want to get close to somebody, if you want to find out what is really the truth or what's really interesting, you have to create a trust between these two things, between the journalist and the subject.
It's funny to think that when you get done with an acting job, you're considered unemployed. There are definitely times when those checks don't last forever. I went to college at a private school, and I racked up quite a bit of debt. I was very slow to pay them back.