Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My dad prepared me for the worst of times while also enabling me to succeed in the best. He taught me to confront the insidiousness of racism head on, no matter what the ramification, so it will not fester. Defeat it and get past it. That was The Talk. Nothing scared me after that.
When I was out for the Christmas Holidays in school, I would go skiing up to the mountains and there they had Santa on a sled. Pulled by horses and other reindeer, it was a very, very picturesque time and that struck me very emphatically then and has remained with me all this time.
I don't find it hard to direct myself. I can easily think of me as a horrible performer or a good performer. I work with actors who cannot stand watching or looking at themselves, which is not my case. I can have an eye and perspective on whether I'm terrible or good enough for me.
I don't think that other races are inferior, I just think that there's something special about white people. Sometimes, when I think about all the things white people have accomplished throughout history, I smile, and I nod, and I think to myself, 'Yeah, I'm glad I'm on that team.'
You know how they do that effect in movies, where they make it look like you have a twin, but it's really just the same actor playing both characters in the scene? I knew this would be the best route, but I just wasn't comfortable dressing as a woman, so I had to hire other actors.
I love hosting. I've always really enjoyed making people happy, and so anytime I'm doing anything or the event is doing anything, and I look around and there are smiles on everybody's faces, I feel like I've succeeded in doing something. That's the stuff that I'm most grateful for.
For me, I can't watch violence when it's too grotesque, and it's just like, that's revolting to watch. I don't enjoy it. But when it's a Tarantino film, I'm lining up outside the door to see it, and I'm expecting to see something really crazy, a lot of blood, and for it to be funny.
I don't really discriminate with my art. To me, it's my art, and it's to be expressed through whichever medium is there, whether it's treading the boards in the theater, on the small-screen TV, or on the large screen. I love theater, and it's definitely something I would love to do.
When I was in Greenough, Montana, I came across a bear cub. I was off this path, and I thought, If there's a bear cub, that means there's a mother bear somewhere nearby. So I doubled back. If I'd kept going, I'm sure they would have eventually found my sneakers, and that's about it.
I don't see many explosions or ten-car crashes in the course of my life, so I don't put them into my movies. I would love to live in a society where 'My Dinner with Andre' made $100,000,000. Then I would be in the mainstream. I could do that stuff easier than I could do 'Meatballs.'
I had a meeting with the producer of 'Five Easy Pieces,' which is my favorite movie. He introduced me to Francis, and I spent six months going to Napa and Buenos Aires, auditioning for Francis and doing these incredible improvisational games. It was a very bohemian audition process.
I also think it's important for us to hold our elected officials accountable and part of how you do that is simple, call them and let them know when you agree or disagree with what their decisions are and suggest how they should come out on certain legislation that important to you.
And I think it's because good cons are all based on the victim's need, and the successful con artist is the one, I guess, who can exploit that. I remember reading something about this, that one of the great traits of confidence tricksters is the level that they flatter their victim.
I never really thought I had much to add to the conversation that was occurring at 'MADtv.' I didn't know what I would do on the show. But I showed up, and I was surprised - it was fun to work on. Everybody there was really nice, and they seemed to be interested in my contributions.
Although I considered putting my eight years of Boy Scout experience and love for our nation to the test by joining the military, I did not want to put myself in a position where I might be commanded to take the life of another, and quickly ended my flirtation with military service.
You don’t read, you don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like to live in different worlds, to travel on great adventures through the galaxy with people you know better than you know your own family. To live and die with them. These are my friends, my best friends in the world.
I was the guy who was friends with everybody. Yes, I had my core group of friends, but I wasn't part of a clique that excluded people. I hope they thought I was a nice guy. I tried to be just friendly and outgoing. I was class president. I'm supposed to run my class reunion in 2013.
I feel like I'm the best actor on the planet and I also feel like I'm a fraud. I think hubris comes from insecurity. Confidence comes in a more rooted sense; part of being confident is being able to say, "I can be really shitty," and to accept that. But also not to crumble under it.
Mary Martin was Broadway's biggest closet king. Everyone thought Ethel (Merman) was butch and maybe a lesbian, but she wasn't. And everyone thought that lovely little Mary was Miss Femme, and she was -- except next to her gay husband. In other words, don't judge a star by her cover.
When I first moved to L.A., I discovered Roy London. I didn't know anything about the arts, the profession; I had no technique, I knew nothing, I'm fresh from Missouri. I sat in on a few classes, and they just felt a little guru-ish and just didn't feel right to me. Until I met Roy.
Montreal's a unique city, very fascinating stories of architecture and history, and it's this sort of bizarre mixture of Europe and North America. It's not quite Canada and it's not quite America, and it's definitely got this very Euro feel to it. It's a very, very interesting city.
A lot of acting, as I grew up wanting to do, is kind of like magic... I'm not comparing myself to him in the least bit, but if you knew what Daniel Day-Lewis was doing every step of the way and what he was eating, I don't think when he popped up as Lincoln we would quite believe it.
I told a joke and people laughed and it was the best feeling. I knew I wanted to do this as a career. I never knew I could get such a high from telling a joke. There's something so extraordinary about having people listening to you and hanging onto your words - it's a great feeling.
I never want to turn something down because I'm afraid to do it, because of some idea of image or whatever. That was never anything I set out to do. In fact, the opposite, I always want to confuse people in terms of any kind of image and be unpredictable in any kind of movie I make.
It sounds stupid, but there's nothing like walking down the street and seeing a building that's older than 100 years old. I think London - not to sound pretentious - like New York, it's a big melting pot for all things and it's just got this energy that you can't find anywhere else.
I've made movies that I thought were good. I've made movies that I thought were okay, but then I was very good. And sometimes you're in a movie and you think, I wish more people saw that - because you're good. And it just works out that the movie gets lost. But that's show business.
I was a football player at college and dislocated my thumb. I was out for a bit and passed the theatre and saw some lovely drama students walking into an audition for 'Much Ado About Nothing' and thought: 'That's what I'll do when I recover.' I joined that production and was hooked.
When I got the episode where Spider-Man meets Aunt May (voiced by Misty Lee), it was another one of those things where I was like, "I can't believe I have a scene with Aunt May. That's just amazing to me." And they drew her a lot younger and hotter then the Aunt May that I remember.
Scott's Eastwood movie Snowden sounds fascinating. I want to see it because it's about deserting your country ... for whatever reasons you have. Edward Snowden became famous for the wrong reasons, as Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger became famous for doing something spectacular.
I've been working with a holistic specialist, trying to bring my body into balance, and part of making that happen is putting my mom's death into a healthier perspective. I really need to let her go, let her go into the infinite. I can't keep hanging onto this rope that connects us.
My dad was pretty strict. We didn't even get to watch any of his movies until I was, like, 17 years old. I didn't even see his stand-up, really, until I started doing stand-up, and that was when I was 22. So he's pretty strict. We had curfews until I was 17... he didn't play around.
I think one of my favorite things to do is just lock myself up in a small room and listen to music and watch films for a day. Also I just like seeing my friends. We have pizza parties which means I get four friends round, we eat a pizza and we're really lazy and we play PlayStation.
I'm grateful for my health, glad I'm making people laugh, glad my wife still likes me after a lotta years, grateful my daughter is growing, glad I don't take myself too seriously, glad L.A. has Astro Burger, grateful to be coming home to Harlem soon. It's a gratitude list. It works.
I was a truant. And if you're a truant in New York City, the truant officer gets after you, and then you get into the courts, and then things happen which they really shouldn't. But I ended up in a very sweet reform school. It's the place you go to if you've got a really kind judge.
I often stop when I'm doing something, in the middle of rehearsals or some other job, and I try to take a minute to think "Okay, this might be as good as it gets, so drink it in, appreciate it now". So far, I've been lucky because another job has always come along to equal the last.
You know, this is such a rich time that we've just been involved in, and there's really a job now for historians. Film is still very young. This is the first hundred years of filmmaking. So I think it's important that we have some sense of history and continuity. Especially in film.
There's always got to be room for what you might call benign corruption. Nobody blames a man who steals food to feed his starving children, but on the other hand, somebody who picks up a badge and takes an oath to serve and protect; we do expect a certain level of essential honesty.
I would like to do any way possible that Howard Stark can make a return. He's such a fun character to play, and I really believe that he could make quite an exciting character to watch more of. The flawed entrepreneur, the kind of crazy playboy, from that era is an exciting concept.
People like Johnny Depp are an exception. He is the current model of what an actor should be. His body of work speaks volumes. He was so under-rated for so long, but he will have longevity - and it is such a gratifying thrill to see he is finally getting the recognition he deserves.
I was born to play Hercules. I have loved and honored the mythology over the years - since I was a kid. When I first broke into Hollywood, 'Hercules' was one of the movies that I - not chased, because I didn't have the power to chase anything - but always had in the back of my mind.
As an actor, it's a relatively passive job unless you're generating your own content or writing your own content. So to a certain degree you're at the mercy of what is available, what you're reading, what you become passionate about, and ultimately, what people want to hire you for.
It's very, very hard to create something that is big these days because you have niche markets - and, you don't necessarily need to be big; the show is specifically created for a small group of people. You know, if it's on the USA network, well, then a small group of people is fine.
It's part of my responsibility, as an actor who has been lucky enough to have this job, to take my job very seriously, show up on time, know my lines, and give the best performance that I can because I'm doing something that so many other people work very hard to have and never get.
Though I acted in hundreds of productions, appeared at the Guthrie Theatre and on Broadway in Amadeus, I discovered in my thirties that I didn't really like stage acting. The presence of the audience, the eight shows a week and the possibility of a long run were all unnatural to me.
I'd have no problem kicking Tobey McGuire out of Spiderman because Spiderman has been my favorite superhero since I can possibly even remember having my first thought . I love Spiderman, but he does a great job so I'm going to have to find myself another superhero to become one day.
I grew up with Scientology - my parents at one point were clerical. It's a pragmatic philosophy, not merely a belief system. Yeah, it's had media exposure because certain luminaries do Scientology, but millions of people do it who are not celebrities. It's not a threat or some cult.
A film like 'Good Night And Good Luck,' you make that for $7 million because you know it's a black-and-white film, and it's not an easy sell. If you make it for $7 million, then everybody can have a chance to make a little bit of money, and you get to make the film you want to make.
There's times when I'll see a show, or something cooking on TV, and think, "That can really be fun when it's working." But it's a grind. I did that at NBC, it was five days a week. I was doing Talk Soup and Later at the same time. It's a hard job, more difficult than people realize.
I have to hear this all the time in England: Well, all Americans are fat and stupid, mm-hm-hm-hm-hm. Really? Well, thanks for sending over the best and brightest to start the party. Maybe we can send a few freaky, Texas, militia, hate-group, gun-toting weirdoes back to your country.
Ive never been a big believer in ghosts or the spirit world, and for me, that was part of the point of the movie, ... What the Ghostbusters represented was the triumph of human courage and human ingenuity. People create their own monsters. Our fears come from within us, not outside.