Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In theater, you can be free. That's how Lin-Manuel Miranda got to do the most revolutionary piece of theater with 'Hamilton': color-blind casting in roles in which they would never cast Latinos if it were a film or TV show. It just goes to show that Hollywood and cable are way behind.
Actually I was born in 1940 in Blackpool because my family lived in Manchester but Manchester was being bombed. So my mother was sent away to Blackpool to have me and then went back; so I lived my first eighteen years in Manchester and then emigrated to the States when I was eighteen.
I've always enjoyed hiding behind these characters. It's a strange thing, you're more comfortable as a character than you are in life. I could stand up in front of, it doesn't matter how many people, as a character. But if I had to do it as myself and give a speech, I would be liquid.
After I had done the first 'Pirates' movie and 'Secret Window,' I went on vacation to escape with my kiddies and my girl, and someone said that there was an island down the road for sale. I said, 'Oh well, let's go see it.' I looked at it, I walked on it, and I was done. It had to be.
Fighting really does reveal everything to the other guy. It's not just about who can beat up to or who's tougher, it's who bullies who and who goes easy on who. You change from opponent, so it's about how you deal with a challenge and how you deal with a guy who you can handle easily.
I've gotten away with a lot in my life. The older you get the more you realize you're not getting away with it, it's taking its toll somewhere. So you try not to put yourself in those situations. Part of the mysterious process called growing up. Some people do that better than others.
I always wanted to be a film-maker when I was younger, not an actor. I was an eight-year-old who dreamed of being a writer on 'The Simpsons,' which was a weird dream to have. But I started taking acting classes as a way to learn how to direct actors and I sort of fell in love with it.
Just to be part of a process where you hit no professional speed bumps and you're just sort of going on and on. I'm surrounded by these people that are all so collaborative and all bring things of their own to the process. For them to be alive in the scenes so you don't have to worry.
When I do an impression of someone or when I am pretending to be someone else, something freaky happens: I feel the person I am mimicking behind my eyeballs. Their head is sitting perfectly inside mine, helping me project a false self out on to the world. And it's not always a choice.
I was actually filming in Atlanta when I got a call from Walter Hill saying, "Well, it could be your turn to play Hickok." I said, "Oh, well, great!" He said, "What's your hair look like?" I said, "Well, it's short, Walter, but... I've still got that wig!" . He said, "Well, bring it!"
I used to go to the Hollywood YMCA when I first came here, and I was standing in front of the mirror doing curls, and I noticed this guy next to me also doing curls. He was grimacing a lot, and I noticed he had an underbite. I looked more closely and realized it was Bruce Springsteen.
Once I realized the emptiness of life apart from knowing God, when I embraced God and the truth of the gospel and the truth of the Bible, it was a no-brainer decision to see that that was a treasure that was infinitely more valuable than some sort of an atheistic Hollywood party life.
' Daisies' is about a guy touching dead people and bringing them back to life. It's kind of morbid, you know. But there's a love to it. There's a kind-heartedness to it that I think makes it - I don't know; it's a good thing to put out there in the world, so I'm glad people responded.
My theater professor once said to me 'Leslie, you are capable of genuine artistry but you're the laziest actor I know. And yes, you can make people laugh, but you're going to become a parody of yourself and end up in Hollywood if you're not careful.' And he's right, I did all of that.
I used to walk in the burnt up Harlem of the '80s, and I'd look at brownstones that were dilapidated or apartment buildings, thinking 'Whoever designed this and built this did not want it to look like this.' So, I used to visualize one day being able to contribute and build in Harlem.
If you're producing a movie you're involved in every aspect of the movie and that can be daunting and then going and doing a movie where you're just an actor for hire, and you can kind of sit back and giggle where you can see somebody sitting over there wasting time and wasting money.
I'm a long time [Scott] Fitzgerald fan, as probably everyone in America is. And I've always been fascinated by that theme of, what is the price of the American dream and what parts of your soul do you walk away with? The conflict of art versus commerce was also very interesting to me.
People do things in the names of good, and in the name of ideals, but the world isn't that simple. So they end up doing things that aren't necessarily good. Even if they think they're doing the right thing, but when viewed from a different perspective they can look barbaric and crazy.
I've had this unbelievable amount of good fortune and I'm just so thankful for it. But at the same time I feel exceptionally guilty. I have so many friends who are talented graduates of Juilliard and are exceptional actors and I'm the lucky one that somehow got such a fortunate break.
You can go anywhere in New York. There's always something to do in New York. There's always a place to eat no matter what time it is. There's always a place to work, a place to drink. It's conducive to my lifestyle. I don't know how to drive a car, so I like to be able to walk places.
It's a little bit odd. The first time you do the play, you kind of throw yourself into it, trying to get the most out of all the individual moments. Then, a few hours later, you're still there, wondering what you could possibly do differently than what you just did a couple hours ago.
I'm very interested in starting to produce, and direct, and have an umbrella over an entire project in the future. I'd like to have control over what the characters do. I think as an actor, you get a little too caught up in the moment-to-moment, beat-to-beat stuff to have perspective.
Eight years ago, I was a waiter, and I didn't have a pot to piss in. And now...? It's like I said to my wife: I love the fact that, if I was in a restaurant and Steven Spielberg walked in, I could go up to him and say, 'Hey, mate, how are you?' I think that's pretty amazing, actually.
Between podcasts and places like Funny or Die or CollegeHumor, there are so many venues to get the word out. It makes it difficult in that there's a never-ending desire for content, so you have to constantly be turning stuff out, but that makes you better and more prolific in general.
When I was eight, I would look at the cover of the 'Ghost Rider' comic book in my little home in Long Beach, California, and I couldn't get my head around how something that scary could also be good. To me it was my first philosophical awakening - 'How is this possible, this duality?'
I try not to blame the public, because the public - men, especially - have seen not great portrayals of women in supporting roles, because they're not given the lead roles a lot of the time. Especially in comedy, they're relegated to the adversary, which is like "the mean girlfriend."
I just went to your typical public schools, and my dad would take us to the movies every week, or he'd buy scalped tickets to San Antonio Spurs games. I remember I was four or five years old and my parents, who were very young, took us to see The Police in Austin, and Iggy Pop opened.
My Italian granny and my mother made great spaghetti, but it wasn't a kind of southern Italian, Godfather-esque kind of thing - it was a wonderful, big mixing pot of all kinds of people - when you came home from school and your mum wasn't in, there were lots of people you could go to.
Everyone had coverage. You might have like three lines, but there were 10 people, so they would cover each person. Three lines could take 12 or 15 hours, but it was fun because everybody was together. As hard as it was to shoot those scenes, I always enjoyed when we were all together.
Man, I did love this game. I'd have played for food money... I used to love traveling on the trains from town to town. The hotels... brass spittoons in the lobbies, brass beds in the rooms. It was the crowd, rising to their feet when the ball was hit deep. Shoot, I'd play for nothing!
I must have been six or seven years old at the time. My family lived on the bottom floor of a two-story house on Cruger Avenue in the Bronx, and every night at 9:30, I sat by my little radio in our kitchen and listened to a half hour of Bing's records regularly spilling out over WNEW.
Open mind all the way. Because people have had eyewitness accounts, they've seen things, they swear they've seen things, and I tend to believe in people rather than - maybe I'm a little naive, but my optimistic outlook on life is to sort of be positive and take everyone at face value.
I asked Michael Jackson once. I said to him, 'How were you able to go from the Jackson Five to the biggest star in the world? What was your secret, Michael?' He said, 'Ricky, stay inspired. That's the hardest thing to do. If you can figure out a way to stay inspired, you can make it.'
I went to Glenalmond and got the piss taken out of me for my Glasgow accent. Then I spent five years at this very posh school, came out sounding like Prince Charles, which you have to do in order to survive, and then I got called Lord Fauntleroy for the first six months at art school.
People actually were worried that I was going to get stereotyped as a monster after Freddy, but my God, I got stereotyped as white trash for years, the best friend for years, the redneck for years, the nerd for years and let me tell you...it's better to be a monster than to be a nerd.
It's been amazing to play the same character through so many adventures. And it's so strange because my life has changed so much over these years, but 'Twilight' and Edward Cullen will always be a part of me. It's been my whole life. My whole 20s. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
I've had those periods in my career when I was sitting around waiting for a phone call and had an agent who was doing the same thing rather than going out there to shake the bushes looking for a job for me. It's a frustrating game, that's the downside of this business - the rejection.
We were talking about television one time, and Damon Lindelof said he felt that, if Ernst Hemingway was writing for media, he would write feature films, and Lev Tolstoy and Fedor Dostoyevsky would write television series because there are some stories you just can't tell in two hours.
Honestly, I'd love to think I was in a position where I had that decision. But last year I worked on a movie in Bulgaria, now I'm in New York or LA. It really sounds jet-setting when you say it, but there's lots of down-time where you wonder what you're doing or you wonder about life.
The advice you give to young directors for sure is to go out and become some version of a successful movie actor. Do that first and say yes to people like Terrence Malick and Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen when they come and offer you movies. It's a great front row seat to filmmaking.
I don't believe there are climate skeptics. I think there are people who indulge in a culture of what can be reduced to Fox network thinking. That has nothing to do with the politics that apply to the protection of quality of life in any sense. It's like talking to a member of a cult.
I'm wide open to getting married, but actors are not easy people to date. You end up sharing that person with this other mistress that is their career. I very much like the traditional courtship method of making a date. That's what they do in normal places, but Hollywood's not normal.
Once I moved to Chicago and started trying to get acting jobs, I just tended to book more things that were comedically based than anything else. I never had the preconceived notion, "I will be a comedic actor." I just thought, "I'll go into acting and see what kind of work I can get."
Once I moved to Chicago and started trying to get acting jobs, I just tended to book more things that were comedically based than anything else. I never had the preconceived notion, 'I will be a comedic actor.' I just thought, 'I'll go into acting and see what kind of work I can get.'
I don't apologize for my behavior anymore. Whatever I do or don't do shouldn't matter. Moral certainty is dangerous. Moral certainty is what makes people go to war unnecessarily and illegally. Morality, as any halfway intelligent human being would tell you, is a very subjective thing.
I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the audience either laughs sincerely or they laugh automatically or they don't laugh. The thing that bothered me was that automatic laugh. I said, that's not real laughter.
You want a judge who makes objective decisions, and that's why temperament is such an important component of being a judge. You have to earn people's respect, because they know that you are deciding the case based on the facts and the law, not because they're trying to be your friend.
I've done my "mind over matter" movies, and I think probably that people aren't really interested in seeing me do that anymore. I think I'm kind of past my prime to do dramatic films. I think it'd become kind of like almost a pathetic cry out to be recognized as a serious drama actor.
It's much better to wreak havoc on a show and be a maniac than promote myself. Plugs and anecdotes aren't really in line with my beliefs. Besides, if someone sees me on a morning show and thinks, 'That's not funny; this guy is crazy,' then I don't want them to come to the show anyway.
To me, there were comedies that should go up for Oscars. I think Eddie Murphy in 'The Nutty Professor' was one of the greatest acting performances of all time, but it'd never be recognized that way. They always go for De Niro and Pacino, but Eddie Murphy played seven different people!