Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We didn't make money but we never lost money. We'd sit around Times Square with fliers, walk around the Village and try and get people to come. Now you'd just tweet it, but that was the beginning of emails, or the beginning of me doing emails - I'm sure there were people in 1986 who were doing emails.
As an actor, your focus is very finite. All you're worried about is your character and what you have to do, what your goals are in this scene and in this piece of material. Whereas, as the director, everything is your responsibility. I enjoy carrying the load like that and being the responsible party.
I can't speak American dog very well. There was a lot of improvisation with Uggie - like when I put the dog on the table or sometimes I follow him, sometimes he follows me. I had a lot of treats in my pocket. We worked with Omar Von Muller, the dog trainer. It was very easy because it was a big movie.
He's a man who... well, one of the great things about Shakespeare is that his characters are inconsistent, and that's something I think makes him a writer above most writers because inconsistency is what we, as people, are full of. We maybe don't see it in ourselves too often, but we are inconsistent.
I started taking my fiance, Justin, to some red carpet events I would go to, and a bowtie is often something that was required. We came across a lot of stylish bowties. We liked playing dress up for these events and we thought it would be fun to start a line, but it was never a reality until recently.
I kind of cheer the presence of any gay characters at all - I think the more we can saturate television with any gay character or lesbian character or transgender character, I think that's a really great thing. We're kind of getting past the fact that they're the punchline or that they're the novelty.
The think that we hung the film version all on was 'Hedwig' on tour. On stage, it's one theatre, one show. It just seemed natural to change it. In the film, we were able to go to flashback rather than have her talk to the audience. And we had the play to practice and to see where we had made mistakes.
I loved working with [ Lars Von Trier], but I've done two films before, so I was quite used to him.He's a man of incredible moods of course, but he's also a hugely perceptive man, and there's no getting away from that. And he's able to put that perception into something like film, so we're very lucky.
I'd love to claim that what I have done in my life is of my doing, but it's not of my doing at all. I've blown around in the wind like a mad thing, influenced by this and that - like a piece of paper: like the boy in that scene in 'American Beauty' watching a piece of paper blowing hither and thither.
I never wanted to be the guy people looked at. I felt I could only be myself when I was alone, that I turned into some kind of novelty. The only way I could get through that time was to drink. I poisoned myself with alcohol for years but I've never been into drugs in the way it was sometimes made out.
I remember telling my mom, 'Mom, I'm gay, but I'm not going to march in a parade or anything.' That's what I was telling my parents and all my friends and everything. I'm gay, but I'm not going to be on a float or something. Cut to five years later, and I was the grand marshal of the gay pride parade.
I got the call to play Tony Manero in 'Saturday Night Fever' in Madrid, a role I'd always wanted, as it's such a well-constructed show, and my background is in musical theatre. I'd been travelling back and forth between London and Spain for auditions and had been borrowing money from friends to do it.
I struggled in London for a very long time. 'Be prepared to struggle a lot' - it's a European mentality. The American mentality is positive and 'You can do it' and 'Everything's possible.' In Europe it's an older, more realistic way of thinking. You feel like you're having to prove that you can do it.
I had seen 'Do the Right Thing' when I was at college, and it was incredibly inspiring as a piece of cinema. Just brilliant, I thought. But saw 'Malcolm X' with a crowded audience. It was my first time in an American cinema, hearing an audience respond. You know, in England, everyone is so restrained.
It carried quite a wallop. I have all the classic symptoms. Reflection. Where am I now? Where have I come from? What's important? Dealing with the moment of a different kind of feeling for mortality. Shifting of the body. Contextualizing or reevaluating behaviors and values. All those kinds of things.
I love filmmaking when fate is a part of the process and you are dependent on the laws of physics and the elements to get a single moment that transports or in some way creates an illusion even for a moment. I think that is tremendous fun and what I think filmmaking is, catching lightning in a bottle.
I had a period when I was sixteen where I started to get a big head. I was going through puberty, and I was nominated for an Academy Award. My head got inflated. My friends were the real ones who said, 'You're acting different.' But the truth is that I don't need that, because I don't get out of hand.
We shot in a place called Asheville, which is like beautiful, beautiful forests. … And then part of it we shot all the reaping stuff, which was just crazy - because the reaping in the book and in the script is such an emotional thing for everyone. It really did feel like that when we were shooting it.
The guy who kind of broke the story in 'Spotlight' was a priest, the guy who had sort of done all the research. One of the things he said when one of the 'Spotlight' reporters asked him how he could still remain a Catholic, he said that, 'My faith is in the eternal, and the church is an organization.'
Each form of the acting is different. I think it keeps your mind active. TV, film and theater are different disciplines, as are independent films, opposed to studio films. There are differences in the size and the genre, or a period drama as opposed to a contemporary drama, or the types of characters.
Oh wow, you know what's wrong with all these families on TV? All these kids say stuff no kid would say. Stuff grown-ups want them to say. Man, I'd make a really realistic family. Where kids get spankings. On TV parents say, 'Oh, you shouldn't do that ever again. Now you can have ice cream.' Forget it.
I’m an Adidas guy who walks around in sports gear all the time because there’s always a ball right next to me somewhere. I do a lot of sports but I do enjoy wearing a lot of suits. I have quite a few suits that I really enjoy wearing but, unlike Hannibal, I like wearing them only at special occasions.
There's this Method Man album called 'Tical.' It's his first album. I would just listen to that every day, because the album feels like, if it were a film, it would be black and white. It feels like there's a war percolating throughout the album itself. It's dark, and it has a nice forward pace to it.
I owe a lot to my time on 'House of Cards' because, up until I booked that show, I had been working consistently for 12 years, but I wasn't working on anything that mattered in the way 'House of Cards' did to its audience, to casting directors, to directors and producers. The show hit this sweet spot.
Most films and directors lose their nerve and want to indicate [emotions] a bit more, to show that their story is clear. I'm not saying that's a good thing; as an actor its anathema to good acting, but to have someone with the confidence to say that should I be utterly natural and minimalist is great.
I think being a good parent means that every day is a different challenge. It's about mindfulness and trying to be present. I think life goes really quickly and it's very easy to be tuned out, and not be present. That is what I've learned in my parenting experience, and I continue to be mindful of it.
My first love is acting, but the reality is that I just don't get too many opportunities to stretch, and grow, and inspire myself as an actor, certainly not in terms of where I make money. Yeah, I can go off and do a play, but the reality is as a profession, directing is exponentially more satisfying.
I've learned a lot just being around people who grew up so differently from me, which is cool. It teaches you how to be a lot more tolerant. The bigger your world is, the more tolerant and accepting you become, because you have friends from all walks of life. You learn to be a little bit less selfish.
Honestly, Think Like a Man was the first romantic comedy that I liked. I'd kind of avoided them for awhile because I never felt that any of them were really smart enough. But when I read this script, I genuinely fell in love with the characters, especially my own. So, I just wanted to be a part of it.
When I was doing 'Tales from Hollywood' at the National, I was invited to dinner by the choreographer, Kenneth MacMillan. He told me I had the heart of a dancer and asked me if I'd like to come on at the end of 'Romeo and Juliet' as a friar. I said I'd love to, but sadly, MacMillan died shortly after.
From the time I was a kid, I was crazy about anything having to do with the West. I'd look at all of these photos of Montana, and they all seemed so magical and majestic. I just wanted to go west, and I finally did it when I was barely 21. I went off to volunteer at a Navajo reservation in New Mexico.
'Holes' was my favorite book ever. So you know when you love a book and you hear it's being made into a movie and it makes you a little annoyed at first? But I would've loved to play the Shia LaBeouf role in that movie when I was younger. I just wanted to be the rebellious kid on the old digging camp.
The voiceover thing is very selfless. You go in there and they've hired you for your voice, but they know exactly what they want, and the writer's there and he knows exactly how it's supposed to be said. So you can't really argue with them, you just have to let them tell you what to do and then do it.
The Omen is one of my favorites. Even though I'm an atheist now, I was brought up Catholic and can remember thinking that it could actually be real! The first Dawn of the Dead is a great one. We had a TV serial in Britain called Day of the Triffids and that was always really terrifying for me as well.
A certain month or a certain season can elicit a certain emotional response. That is certainly true for anyone who has a negative anniversary on their calendar, the approach of that month brings the feeling of being very much back in another room. It is a time that stands outside the rest of the year.
The notion that "this too shall pass" is comforting, both in knowing that whatever pain I'm in will change into something else and allowing myself to experience the pain, not trying to blunt it or brush it aside. It's important to feel and to be connected to your emotions, whichever way they play out.
The true meaning of an artist/actor is opening my heart to the audience and at the same time opening their heart. Through sharing my pain I can possibly heal your pain, there is no other feeling like it, money doesn't compare. This is the true meaning of Art. I will attempt to do it till my dying day.
And I asked my mother about it; I said, 'Is there something wrong?' She said, 'God... God makes people. You understand that, don't you?' And I said, 'Yeah!' She said, 'Who makes a rainbow?" I said, 'God.' She said, 'I never presumed to tell anyone who could make a rainbow what color to make children.'
I have a real problem now when I go onto Netflix: it takes me a half hour to pick something out. They've got to figure something out, whether it's their algorithm... Maybe if they had it curated like a video store: 'Will Ferrell recommends this movie' or 'Jennifer Lawrence recommends these 10 movies.'
I wanted to play piano in restaurants in the south of France. I went there on holiday once and I saw this guy playing in an old tuxedo. He was all disheveled, with a whisky glass on the piano. I thought that was the coolest thing. So what's happened to me with 'Twilight' isn't really what I'd planned.
What directors of television drama constantly tell you is 'Don't act it. Don't try. Don't emphasise that word'. Whereas with someone like Blackadder, even though he's a relatively low key character in a way, he did relish the lines that he had and the words that he was given, with a lot of inflection.
It certainly helps, I think, with some actors to understand the process of acting. You see what extraordinary pressure they're under, there's a huge circus dedicated to a particular moment and they're got to deliver and it can help that you, even if empathetically alone, understand what they're doing.
I never was that boy who loved gangster films, but when I was growing up, I was obsessed with the detective Dick Tracy. It was one of my favourite movies as a kid, and he really inspired me. I would have loved to be part of that golden age of Hollywood in the 1940s. It made me want to become an actor.
I've been wanting to do some type of video about the idea that YouTubers have to have some kind of personality disorder, something right, to do what we do. Putting ourselves on camera all the time, being so open on camera all the time, having conventions with our name in it. There has to be something.
I don't mind being recognized, it's just that I have a bit of social anxiety, and this situation has increased it. The idea of having to be 'on' and social at random times can be difficult. I'll be out in the morning, someone comes and takes a picture, and then I discover I have toothpaste on my face.
When I first got money, I went through it like everybody else, because I didn't know. But, right now, I've educated myself and placed smart people around me. I surrounded myself with people who not only are intelligent and effective about finances, taxes, and money management, but they (also) love me.
I always did plays, and when I went to NYU - and I didn't go to Tisch, the theater school, because I was like, 'Well, acting's not realistic. You can't make a career out of it.' So I just studied general studies and humanities at NYU, but I was doing plays while I was there. So I was sort of cheating.
When you're younger you just want to go out and make your mark in the world and doing that, quite often, the people that you love the most and the people you should be closest to suffer from estrangement. I'd be gone nine months a year, so how do you know anyone? When you come home you are a stranger.
I think that it's hard for vain people to be funny. I think you can look any way you want as long as you have a good sense of humor about yourself. People who are concerned with their looks and what they're wearing and how they present themselves tend to have less of a sense of humor about themselves.
I am a fan of all genres. My big thing is to serve the purpose of the script and what the director wants. If it's a comedy, I want to be funny; if it's action, I want to bring the action. If it's drama, I want to be the catalyst for that drama. That's the fun part; it never gets boring being an actor.