Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In a lot of places in the United States and certainly even more places around the world, the image of the cowboy has become, for some people, a negative one. The word 'cowboy' implies a strong, stubborn individual whose individualism depends on pulling down other people's individualism.
I was born in New York but as a baby moved to Venezuela and Argentina. I've also lived in Denmark, where my father's from. I've traveled a lot, and having that sort of background probably increased the chance that I was going to remain curious as an adult about people who are different.
I approach every film I do in the same way, whether it's an action film or not an action film. I guess if a certain physicality lends itself to action, but I started acting before I reached puberty. I was 7 years old when I started acting. It wasn't until I became a bouncer in New York.
When I was a child, I did always feel that people were hiding things, and that they weren't expressing their true feelings. When adults are too complicated, and cover their emotions with layers of well-intentioned subterfuge, the child isn't seeing reality clearly enough and gets upset.
Before I was 5, I did have a lot of time on my hands. I had no job and really no career, and I spent an awful lot of time listening to records. It was more the classical ones, really - Prokofiev, and I think there was some Mozart in there, and more impressionistic composers like Delius.
I think the advantage we had with "MacGruber" is the speed we had to put it together. We had a such a short period to write the movie and such a post-[production] period, it was almost like the way that the show worked, where everything is happening so fast you have to go with your gut.
My parents let me get my outfit in the gayest place possible, the 'International Male Catalog.' They sold mostly speedos and thongs and clubwear, and I was like, I'm getting that sheer shirt with the dragon on it, and then those vinyl patent leather pants and the cheetah platform boots.
I actually didn't read the book [Fast Food Nation]. I wasn't aware of it. But when I read the script, I thought "Wow." It became a project that was just so exciting to be a part of. Maybe a few times in a career [you] get a chance for a role that really means something, and this was it.
My return to the theater in New York was so specific. I didn't want it to be about leveraging my exposure or my fame, so the first show I did in New York was an ensemble piece at an Off-Broadway theater, and I wanted to make sure that it was just about the play and about the experience.
I did swimming, gymnastics, dance, and the acting was just a small part. I didn't have pushy parents; it wasn't forced upon me. They just said, 'See if you like it. If you do, great; if you don't, don't worry about it.' I was really fortunate to have that guidance and supportive parents.
It used to be that you kind of got pigeonholed into one thing - you're either a stage actor or a TV actor or a movie actor. Today, there's a lot of crossover with film actors doing television, which never happened before, so those lines are a little bit more blurred than they used to be.
The movie [Blue Jasmin] shot very quick. I met Cate Blanchett in the car on the way to set, and we did that last scene, and she was just so phenomenal. I had basically met her that day. Because the way he shoots, everybody just shows up and does their thing, and he moves us very quickly.
Look at the shows that are really successful on Broadway. They're musicals. They're things that a woman will pick out the tickets for, or a man will buy the tickets with a woman in mind. It's a date. It's boyfriend-girlfriend, husband-wife. That's what the theater in New York has become.
You get into comedy because you are insecure, and you communicate with the world through comedy to sort of alleviate the tension of those insecurities and to find a way to make people like you other than the way you look or how good you are at sports. I don't think that really goes away.
Speaking from personal experience, I watch zero shows when they air. The only shows I watch live are awards shows or sports. Shows like 'True Detective' and 'Game Of Thrones,' I watch every episode, but I don't watch them as they air, and I think that's becoming the case for people more.
What I've become good at is bringing things that aren't necessarily mainstream to the mainstream. What I did see on Twitter was a potential for mass publication; it's a mainstream consumer broadcasting device. It transforms customers and companies. You have to be transparent or you fail.
I had saved a lot of money working at Mrs. Fields' Chocolate Chip Cookies, ushering at the Golden Gate Theatre, and doing odd jobs so I could live in New York for a few months. If it ran out, I would have to give up and go home. It turned out OK. I got my Equity card and started working.
I got into acting as a young child on account of a sort of arbitrary thing. A friend of my mom's was a casting director, so really, as kind of a lark, I had a couple of acting jobs that had just enough exposure to give me the option to continue if I wanted to. I followed through with it.
I have never, ever, received any taunts or any form of anti-Semitism. And I suppose being a Jewish football player with the Atlanta Falcons was no different than being a Baptist football player with the Atlanta Falcons. But in the back of your mind, you always expect something to happen.
When you act obnoxious towards people, like on a movie set, they say "we're ready for you" and I say "oh, go to hell, my feet hurt and my head aches." You want to have a margarita for lunch, and people like these little ADs and production assistants are like, "well, he's drinking again."
I will be in Orlando during the atheist convention to do my best to counter the assaults upon Christ of the atheists. I also plan on running a large newspaper ad in the Orlando Sentinel addressed to the atheists and warning the Orlando area of the atheists' vile plans for their children.
The one on Fresh Hell is a little easier, because we make it up. It's a strange kind of hybrid of the real me and... Well, obviously it's me standing there, and it's my voice and my face, but it's also kind of filtered through Harry Hannigan's take on the character, the one he's writing.
We cannot stick our heads in the sand concerning the issue of hunger in America. Even though this subject seldom reaches the front page of our newspapers or is featured on news programs because of its lack of sensationalism, the problem exists in massive proportions and must be defeated.
In order to be an actor you really have to be one of those types of people who are risk-takers and have what is considered an actor's arrogance, which is not to say an arrogance in your personal life. But you have to be the type of person who wants the ball with seconds left in the game.
I got into a brawl one night in a saloon in Greenwich Village. Elia Kazan, a great director, saw me put out a couple of hecklers and figures there was some Big Daddy in me, just lyin' dormant. And out it came. People still do call me Big Daddy, but to me, inside, I'm no Big Daddy at all.
To be completely honest, it's shocking to me that I keep getting the villain roles! I do not see myself as the villain and I know, growing up, I was the opposite of a villain. I would never try to be a villain to anyone - but maybe other people I grew up with feel differently about that.
I love all types of music. Jazz, classical, blues, rock, hip-hop. I often write scripts to instrumentals like a hip-hop artist. Music inspires me to write. It's either music playing or completely silent. Sometimes distant sound fuels you. In New York there's always a buzzing beneath you.
I've lived almost, like, four completely different lives. (Stripping) was just one section - one little small section, if that - but it was a very interesting and turbulent but kind of wild ride and I'm not ashamed of it all. I think it's hilarious and I learned a lot about human nature.
Now that I'm in 'Nashville,' the thing that I'm loving the most is co-writing. You walk into the room and you shake hands with someone you've never met before and you walk out four hours later and you've got this thing... sharing ideas and everything, it's almost magical, like a miracle.
Steve MCQueen created an entire family to tell one man's tale and I am delighted that so many of this family have also been recognised today. I am hugely grateful to the Academy for this great honour, and, of course, to Solomon Northup for sharing his story through his breathtaking book.
I really do think you lose the audition on the first ten seconds. I think you walk in, the casting directors and the producers and the directors have a real definite feeling of what they're going for, and if you don't look like it, it's pretty much done. Your acting is basically a bonus.
You're as young as you feel. As young as you want to be. There's an old saying I heard from a friend of mine. People ask him, "Why do you look so good at your age?" He'll say, "Because I never let the old man in." And there's truth to that. It's in your mind, how far you let him come in.
If a person is constantly evolving, constantly reading new material and being exposed to new material and growing in life, then you're becoming, hopefully, a more intelligent and well-rounded individual. If you're not then something's wrong and you're sliding back in the other direction.
No matter where you are in your life, whatever set of people you're with, it all still breaks down like high school does. You have your social cliques, you have the people you get along with, the people you don't and the people you're ambivalent about. All of the dynamics are still here.
At every turn you have to find a new kind of self-sovereignty over your environment. Every kid I see is at the mercy of Periscope, Twitter, or an Angry Bird of some description. People are shackled to their mediocrity by companies and businesses who want to consume your life with theirs.
Whenever somebody says they need an angle for their story I always fear that they've got an idea and they want me to fit into it or they want me to come up with an idea myself or I'm supposed to be more revealing than I've been, and to me it just sounds like something I don't want to do.
Hail, Caesar! is about, in my opinion - I love that movie - but I think it's about the idea that as glamorous as the business is, and for as much hoopla that surrounds moviemaking, ultimately it's just a job. If you focus on it, you can do it really well, and it takes a lot of hard work.
The simple act of sitting down and playing something enormously complex and spiritually uplifting on a harpsichord just bores kids to tears. There's no sizzle, there's no grab. But it's the great lesson of serious music, that it invites you to listen, rather than demands that you listen.
I've got categories of jobs, and one of the categories is 'money jobs.' If one of those comes along and I have to make a living, even if I don't like the script that much, I'll do it and just try to stay above water, which I'm able to do most of the time. I try not to sink with the ship.
The alcohol was awful. I was a terrible alcoholic. I mean, people used to ask how much drugs I did. I said, 'I only do drugs so I can drink more'. I was doing the coke so I could drink more. I mean, I don't know any other reason. I'd start drinking in the morning. I'd drink all day long.
'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' was a movie that I repeatedly turned down. The movie's producer, Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli, known for his tight-fisted control of the James Bond movie franchise, desperately wanted to re-team Julie Andrews and me after the success we'd enjoyed with 'Mary Poppins.'
I'm singing and dancing and playing guitar. I really enjoy pushing myself into different aspects. I'm not going to do this for the rest of my life, but I want to keep challenging myself. And if I'm fearful of something I definitely want to step into it and see how good or bad I am at it.
The goal for me is always to have the opportunity to work in different genres. This is a great and exciting time in my career, where I can have the opportunity to work in different genres, and also I recognize there's not a lot of actors who have that opportunity and I'm grateful for it.
What we set out to do with this movie [Leaves of Grass] was to create something that was funny and serious and had large tonal ambitions. A movie that could be poignant and funny, and suddenly quite violent. To have a character utterly sideswiped, and to learn that life is about balance.
Rachael Leigh Cook was my leading lady. She was awesome. We loved the show [Perception ]. Again, it was more of a TNT show, because there were crimes that got solved, which [going] back five years ago, was a mandate. But there was something innovative about the mental illness side of it.
We define a metrosexual as someone who really takes care of themselves in terms of grooming and style. There is nothing wrong with that. But I think you need to have some other values. It's cool to incorporate some traditional values into metrosexuality. Then it becomes a good lifestyle.
My role models were always the Pacinos and the Oldmans, the guys who get dirty with their characters, and I arrived in L.A. during the big boom of 'Dawson's Creek.' I was getting cast as the boy next door, or the friend of the jock. I thought, 'Did I really have to do all that studying?'
At the Oscars, if you didn't vote for '12 Years a Slave,' you were a racist. You have to be very careful about what you say. I do have particular views and opinions that most of this town doesn't share, but it's not like I'm a fascist or a racist. There's nothing like that in my history.
I like writing, and I enjoy it. It's painful. You can't get around the pain of writing. I'm still trying to balance on what I think is my creative habit. It varies, but I do know that I need to continue. It helps me with my acting, and the writing helps me be invested in a different way.
I read mostly historical fiction - lots of stuff set in ancient Rome and ancient Greece. I also liked sci-fi and fantasy: David Gemmell, Raymond E. Feist. It's a nice escape from the world. As much as I do love real-life stories, they can often make you hurt in a way I'd rather not hurt.