Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I get so antsy. When you're working, you're like, 'Oh my God, I'm so tired.' And then a hiatus starts, and you're off for three days, and you don't know what to do with yourself. You're never gonna have another job in your life, and you suck at acting. Your world comes tumbling down pretty quickly.
It's very, very difficult because we're living in a world where they invent things in order to hide things from parents. There are these secret creator app guys who make things to intentionally do that, to keep your parents in the dark, and you've really got to work extra-hard to stay on top of it.
A talented executive would be somebody who knows how to surround themselves with a lot of people that will make him look good. You could say that about a politician or you could say that about a head of a major corporation or what have you. The people you surround yourself with it's very important.
My dad had a stroke. It's one of those life-changing events. It was right around the time I was turning 40. We were doing 'L.A. Law,' and I got this call that my dad was in Rome and had had a stroke. I want to stress that it wasn't a huge stroke, but it was enough to provide a serious wake-up call.
I definitely learned never to fall in love in high school because it just takes over your brain. We were so psychotic for each other that I didn't care about anything else. It was too much. Relationships are important, but stay focused on all the things that are important. Figure out what you want.
One of my favorite movies is 'Some Like It Hot,' which isn't really a musical, but I'm just such a sucker for old movies. I wouldn't want to ever tarnish one of them, or do a spot-on remake, but just do something light like that where I get to glide across the floor. I would be a very happy camper.
To me, it feels like 'The Doctor' has to have a long coat, and that's something imprinted on me from childhood, because he always did. And there's something heroic in a flapping coat, but at the same time, I need to get rid of it sometimes and just be a scrawny guy in a suit that doesn't quite fit.
The greatest lesson I've learned in life is "Who knows what's good or bad?" Things come along that you really want, and they turn out to be the worst thing in the world. And some of the worst tragedies that you can conceive turn out to be the best things, the exact medicine you need in that moment.
To be honest with you, girls didn't really start paying attention to me until after 'Clueless' came out. Then, all of a sudden, it was different. And that's the honest-to-goodness truth. I wasn't very popular until that happened. I have zero pickup lines. My game, I guess you could say, is my work.
I mean they [ Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis] are both just really good guys and also they're both extremely funny in very unique ways. We made each other laugh an awful lot, and that goes a long way. And we also went through some hard times. I mean it was hard to make this movie [The Hangover].
I didn't mention the tooth thing to anyone until it became clear that...we started to discuss just taking it out of the movie [The Hangover] because we couldn't find anything that worked and they couldn't afford to do a full like digital effect. So that's when I called my dentist and it worked out.
In the life of any actor or actress, there is inevitably a time when they will be eligible to act in a Tom Stoppard play. He has written a lot, and they are revived often, and there are so many characters of different ages that it was more likely I'd end up in something of his than that I wouldn't.
I don't go home and pretend I'm August rather than just the actual lines I'm saying in the film. If you do it that way, it makes it more natural and second nature. After awhile you get used to it and there's so much, especially being in New York to film; you're always surrounded by American people.
I've discovered that the standard all-American dream of fame and fortune is not success for me. Success for me is simply the joy of working - doing good work - and then bringing that joy home to my family. But if what I do in my work doesn't enrich my life with my family, I'm doing the wrong thing.
I was quiet, a loner. I was one of those children where, if you put me in a room and gave me some crayons and a pencils, you wouldn't hear from me for nine straight hours. And I was always drawing racing cars and rockets and spaceships and planes, things that were very fast that would take me away.
I grew up at a time where I think most people had a social and political conscience. Some of the biggest changes in our country's political history happened at the time I was growing up, so I was raised to be a part of those things and to participate and I will continue to do that as much as I can.
You have to dream, you have to have a vision, and you have to set a goal for yourself that might even scare you a little because sometimes that seems far beyond your reach. Then I think you have to develop a kind of resistance to rejection, and to the disappointments that are sure to come your way.
I fell in love with acting at a very young age, when I was 9 years old and started doing community theater. As far as wanting to make a profession out of it, I was about 13 or 14. When I first saw Indiana Jones in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", when I saw Harrison Ford, I knew I wanted to be in movies.
One of the problems with 'SNL' is that, if you tried to adlib, the director would put you off camera and off the mic, so only you would know that you ever did it. The director always directed to the script; he wasn't listening to what you were doing. He was calling shots whilst looking at the page.
I've done a lot of fight scenes, and I always find that it's better that they be meticulously choreographed. You want them to look as real as possible, but you don't want anyone to get hurt. So I believe in really working it out in rehearsal, and when you get to the set, just go for it 100 percent.
On a spiritual level, on a place where you want to be a better human being and listen more, I try. I joke, but it has. I mean, I don't consider myself a card-carrying Buddhist, you know. But I do believe deeply in the ideas, and I think anytime you have interest in anything, it somehow humbles you.
Sometimes, when you work with directors who have done it a lot and are established in the business and know the game, there are all these rules that they have. First-time directors will allow you to come in with choices. They're not so jaded by actors that they're like, 'Ugh, just do your job, man.
What would I like? Some very silly comedy where I don't have to think about anything, but it could be a lot of fun. And if it's not that, then I'll want to be involved in something where it's like, you're really dredged up to the neck in emotion, where it's as exciting as the premise of Battlestar.
I'm not a network executive, but it seems to be a time when networks take more of a gamble with higher-concept shows. And so, it's fun to be on something that's original, that's finding viewership, that's finding a great audience, and really distinguishing itself. Summer's a great place to do that.
Essentially I feel like all of that pressure when you're making the first of a franchise of [movies based on] books that mean so much to people that has so much attention on it, it can be quite paralyzing I think. I think a lot of that creeped in the first time around and it maybe affects the work.
I said I'm going to vote for Hillary. But my philosophy is that everything's workable. If Trump is president, I'll work with that guy. I don't know if he's terrible or what. He's refreshing in that he doesn't speak in that political way. I don't quite understand why everybody hates Hillary so much.
Meryl Streep's brilliant, just brilliant. I've been fortunate to do two movies with Meryl. And for an actor to go moment to moment like she does, there's no one better. And she dances between moments. Each take is different because she's riding instincts, she's riding impulses. And she trusts that.
I think I tend to live in sort of a meta state of existence where I'm always analyzing and analyzing whatever I'm going through at any given moment, and a lot of times I'll reflect back on and go, 'Oh look at that - if I acted this way when that happened, I might not have thought of that that way.'
Everybody expects the fairy tale - you're going to be together forever with somebody. I don't really subscribe to that. I'd love that to happen if that happened, but ten years is enough. Ten years is a good thing with somebody, I think. It's a nice thing. A lot of good love can happen in ten years.
You have more of a responsibility to make the audience laugh. In comedy, we do have to say, "All right, it's been two minutes in the film. We need another laugh here." With drama, there's no pressure in that regard. It's a different kind of pressure, but it's not like we need to make someone laugh.
Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process.
My film school is making movies. But, I do think that being an actor has served me immensely, as both a writer and director, in terms of knowing what is playable and what will be fun to play, for actors, and also how to communicate to actors on set, and not screw them up and get them in their head.
No, don't learn at karate schools. They overcharge you for karate uniforms. They make you pay, like, fifty or seventy-five bucks just for a karate uniform, and you don't wear a uniform in everyday life, so why train in one? Most fights take place outdoors, not inside with perfect lighting and mats.
I was very fortunate that a teacher saw that I read a lot and got bored very easily and had a lot of energy, so she said, 'You've got to go to this youth theater.' I joined Manchester Youth Theatre when I was really young, and I just loved putting on and being involved in plays and telling stories.
I think it's hard for people to suspend the era they live in and understand the decisions that had to be made often during the western frontier era were life and death. You had to be resourceful and on your feet to try to figure out somebody. You didn't have the benefit of knowing who somebody was.
For even in hell, I still have faith, To one day be free with my father at the gates, But make no mistakes, I'll show you what time takes, To be a success on earth, mixed with all the hate, I stand on my pivot, my life you could not live it For the things that I've seen have been too damn explicit.
If you can unify the public mind saving an iconic species like the tiger, like they did with the panda, that means you have to protect their habitat and everything that they hunt. And that means saving massive, thousands of acres for them to be able to roam and breed. So it's more of a land effort.
The last thing I want to turn into is a fat Hollywood jerk. I was brought up without much money and I was happy. I don’t think that I will strive for money or success and end up greedy or big-headed. That only leads to unhappiness. I can still be down-to-earth and do this job as long as I enjoy it.
All I wanted was attention from girls when I was a kid. Then I got my braces off, and then there was too much attention, and I was also mad that they didn't pay attention to me in the first place. Then I was just like, I couldn't put on blinders and focus on one because there were too many options.
One day when I was like 9, I heard the Beatles on the radio, and I asked my dad who they were. He told me they were the best band in the world, and I became obsessed. He started giving me their albums in sequential order, and I listened to them - and only them - until I was probably in high school.
The percentage of people that go to drama college in the U.K. is probably just like anywhere in the world. It's a very hard business to work in. They say that, at any one time, there's only 5% of actors in the world that are actually working and getting paid, which is a shocking percentage, really.
A good choreographer is one that's going to collaborate, teach, guide - everything. The wonderful thing on 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' was that we had Philip Kwok - he choreographed John Woo's 'Hard Boiled,' and in the '70s, he was a martial arts actor, stunt man, fighter, choreographer in Hong Kong.
The bad, angry, upset, wounded people are more interesting, so they're in the news more, but I don't think they're in the majority. I have faith that things will change - I mean, just like everybody else, I don't fix my roof until it's actually leaking, but eventually, we all get round to doing it.
Being compared to that man [Michael Jordan], who has accomplished so much in his lifetime and is known as one of the greatest ever, is an amazing compliment, but I still want to be looked at as an individual and have my own lane and my own career and looked at as "That's Mike." "That' s Michael B."
A lot of children are interested in fairies, especially young girls, and Tinker Bell is the ueber-fairy. She's the pin-up girl of fairies. She's the ultimate fairy, but she's also got a mischievous spirit and she's very strong-willed. I think a lot of youngsters recognize themselves in Tinker Bell.
One universe, four forces, billions of galaxies. The precision and complexity of our world is enough to make even the famous cosmologist go just a little bit crazy. How does it all fit together? Is there a single, overarching design to the cosmos? And if we find it, will we glimpse the mind of God?
A lot of those old ideas are dying with the people who created them, and there's this new generation of filmmaker that's saying, "We're in this together, these are issues that we all deal with, let's just present issues to screen without bias and figure out what the audience has to say about them."
The first movie that I ever said was my favorite movie - and I've said for the longest - is 'The Producers,' Mel Brooks' original 'Producers.' The two lead performances from Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder are both unstoppable performances and then supported by amazing supporting characters throughout.
There's so much fakeness in the fashion world, but Mum and Dad have always given us a good work ethic and were quite worried at first about whether I could make a living from acting. They've been together for 29 years and share the same values. I really do want to have that kind of marriage myself.
We are a total of our sum parts, right? I came from a family of very strong women - black women. And if I go back as far as my great grandmothers, there was always that love and the ability to be nurturing. Then I grew up in a household where my father was the one who was more affectionate with me.