Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In high school, I went to a place called the Mountain School. It's on a farm in Vermont, and I read Emerson and Thoreau and ran around the woods. Now I go hiking with a bunch of my comedy buddies. We talk about our emotions. I also do a lot of writing on hikes, just to get the blood flowing and the ideas moving.
You can curl up in the fetal position and try to wish away all the things that need doing, or you can get started on that uphill battle to reclaim your life. The difficulty isn’t what choice to make, because that part is obvious. The difficulty lies in finding the energy and inspiration to make the right choice.
The last episode of Dallas was in '1991.' Unfortunately, it was a terrible episode to end the show on: it was a sort of 'It's a Wonderful Life' with Larry as the Jimmy Stewart character. In that episode, I was an ineffectual-schlep kind of brother, who got divorced three or four times and was a Las Vegas reject.
What's great about the geek spirit is that life never seems to stop us, and they never seem to kill our enthusiasm, our optimism and our hunger to experience the world. We keep our sense of humor, we protect our dignity, we talk to our friends about the experience and then we start again fresh the very next day.
'Constitutional' is just a real pip of a word. Positively rolls off the tongue. In fact, it's downright fun to say. 'Con-stit-too-shun-al.' It's the verbal equivalent of skipping down the street with an ice cream cone in your hand. It's like a semantic bag of Lays potato chips. You simply can't just say it once.
I consider myself an atheist. My wife is Jewish. And I'm fine with my son being raised as a Jew. He's learning Hebrew and is really into it. I will talk to my own son about my atheism when the time is right. But there's a great tradition of Jewish atheism, there are no better atheists in the world than the Jews.
I would probably choose supporting roles if I had to make a choice. It's actually a really hard thing to say. It's all on a role-by-role basis, ultimately. I shouldn't be so quick to say that. I feel like you're given greater license to be colorful and eccentric in supporting roles, and that's interesting to me.
My family is Chilean, and I was born there. By the time I was four, we were living in San Antonio, Texas, and I just remember picking a blue bonnet and getting yelled at by some guy with a sheriff hat and a badge. I was traumatized. He told me it was the state flower, and I wasn't supposed to be messin' with it.
I was born with a lot of horsepower. There was a lot cooking inside me, a lot of energy, and Dad was a strong man by will and by intelligence, and the combination of us was almost bound to result in periodic explosions. He and I disagreed politically, very violently, and things would get hectic around the house.
I imagine an America that can actually change. That we become a nation that prospers again but without pillaging the resources of nations that make their people hate us. That we become a nation that, as the constitution says in its preamble, its very first paragraph, 'promotes the general welfare' of its people.
When I was growing up, I felt like I had to qualify it and say I'm British-Pakistani. But now I kind of feel like, in this day in age, this is what British looks like. It looks like me; it looks like Idris Elba, and hopefully through Nasir Khan, people will see that that's what an American can look like as well.
I aspire to be Jack Nicholson. I love his every single mannerism. I used to try and be him in virtually everything I did, I don't know why. I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest when I was about 13, and I dressed like him. I tried to do his accent. I did everything like him. I think it kind of stuck with me.
Ever since my children were born, the moment I looked at them I was crazy about them. Once I held them I was hooked. I am addicted to my children sir. I love them with all my heart and the idea of someone telling me I can't be with them, I can't see them everyday. Well, it's like someone saying I can't have air.
In truth I never really liked any of the heavy drugs, because normally my energy is up when I'm performing, and that's about it. Cocaine is nothing new. It's the pressure, I think. People use it to relieve that, and for me it is about getting numb and forgetting. I have a reverse metabolic reaction to the stuff.
I have a passion for music, and I enjoy the process of expressing myself within the parameters of a pop song, and I don't do it to seek anybody's approval, necessarily. Obviously, you go on stage, and you enjoy it when people respond to a particular song, but the overall concept of playing music I do for myself.
I trained in martial arts and wanted to become a UFC fighter. That was my goal. I only really learned how to dance three weeks prior to making 'Step Up Revolution.' Dancing will always be fun, but MMA is something I'll never give up. I will eventually get back in the octagon and be fighting professionally again.
I was always prepared for my 'Fringe' journey to end immediately. I had only signed up for a guest role but they kept bringing me back in the third season as a recurring character. So pretty much every time I went to film a 'Fringe' episode I kind of said goodbye to the show, but then they kept bringing me back.
IMDB is ridiculous... First of all, they had me down as my height being 5ft 7ins. I'm 5ft 10ins. But now they've got me down as 6ft 1ins and three quarters. They also have me down as doing Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I wish they had me down as doing Francis Ford Coppola's next film. That would be a great rumour.
My mum wants me to get married - and have children, of course. She's met Gaga; we've been dating a while. We're in a committed relationship, and I'm really happy in my relationship. I'm a very lucky guy. As far as having more of a domestic life and settling down into my relationship, we have to see what happens.
You really see that the art world bends over for Hollywood sometimes, in this way that is really grotesque, and the other way around doesn't happen, which is too bad, especially if you consider yourself an artist, and that's what you care about, to see the people you admire and think about the most acting weird.
Jeff Eastin is good in that he'll tell me a plot twist that's coming up if he thinks it would be something Peter would know ahead of time, and if it's something that would be a surprise to Peter, I'll tell Jeff, 'Oh, don't tell me. I don't want to know.' And then it's exciting to read it and exciting to play it.
I worked at Ruby Foos early on as a host. I was only there for a little bit, but I had several odd jobs to pay the bills before that. And being in New York for the first year, I got here in 2003, and it was a very exciting but very scary time not knowing how you would make ends meet and me trying to meet people.
Now, learning how to make a movie is something you can figure out in about an afternoon. The physics of it, the marks, the lights, etc. What's hard to do is to suspend your own feelings of self consciousness. The natural actors can do that; they can become part of a characterization and learn how to maintain it.
I went to London Fashion Week for the first time, after I got the job [on The Collection ], and it completely changed the way I perceived it. I thought, "This is a far bigger operation than I ever expected, and it has far more worth than I ever gave it before." It definitely changed my view of the fashion world.
Here is my Farm Relief bill: Every time a Southerner plants nothing on his farm but cotton year after year, and the Northerner nothing but wheat or corn, why, take a hammer and hit him twice right between the eyes. You may dent your hammer, but it will do more real good than all the bills you can pass in a year.
Now I am not unpatriotic, and I want to do my bit, so I hereby offer my services to my President, my country and my friends to do anything, outside of serving on a commission, that I can in this great movement. But you will have to give me some idea of where "confidence" is. And just who you want it restored to.
There's no easy way around it, no matter how talented you are ... your talent is going to fail you if you're not skilled. If you don't study, if you don't work really hard and dedicate yourself to being better every single day, you 'll never be able to communicate with people your artistry the way that you want!
Actually I'm more culturally Muslim than religiously but being Muslim is an important part of my identity. As Muslim, I feel it's important to counter any form of bigotry, be it anti-Semitism, homophobia, racism, etc. These forms of hate share a common denominator of misinformation and intentional fear mongering.
I think when I started acting it was the first time I got the freedom of expression. I was able to express certain emotions and feelings that I could put into other characters, so it was a good way for me to run away from ho I personally was. I could be a ninja, I could be a pirate or I could be in a play y'know.
I sponsored every team in the Park Slope Little League for years.I sponsor two soccer teams in England, one of which is called Broadley F.C. A kid wrote to me through Facebook because they started a team in honor of their friend who died of leukemia, and he played in the band of this very obscure team in England.
Certainly, I look for different characters 'cause I always like to keep people guessing, and I also don't like to get typecast. I made a concerted effort, last year and this year, to get a range of characters, just to show people the range that I have, and for them to be able to see the artistry beyond the color.
Marie Curie is my hero. Few people have accomplished something so rare - changing science. And as hard as that is, she had to do it against the tide of the culture at the time - the prejudice against her as a foreigner, because she was born in Poland and worked in France. And the prejudice against her as a woman.
I don't know how, where, and why the idea for 'Defending Your Life' began; the idea had been bouncing around for a while. Stories like that sort of have to bounce. They don't come out of nowhere. I went through my own period of life with sort of everything turning upside down, and wondering, 'Why is it this way?'
I've had a couple opportunities where I've been on the other side of the audition process as a director, so it's really reassuring to me that it's just about who is right for that role and less about if you ace the audition. It's just about getting to know people, not about who's a better actor a lot of the time.
So much of being an actor is trying to force yourself into these roles and sometimes it's a good fit, and sometimes it's not a good fit... you have to get clear about what it is that you do and not try to be a bunch of other people. Not try to be that guy or try to play that part; find the roles that you do well.
It's funny, because 'Arrested Development' is tied to Andy Richter in a few different ways. For me personally, after I did Andy Richter, one of the next things I did was a show called 'Quintuplets' for a season for Fox, and this was while 'Arrested Development' was on. I used to go over and hang out on their set.
I like being on a set where you can make decisions and everything is involved and are happy to work together to make the best work. For me, it's all about making the best work and creative people working together and all being respected and all having their opinions of what gives it the best quality is important.
I did tons of theater in school, and then when I was 16 and got my driver's license, I started driving to Los Angeles, along with my friend Eric Stoltz, who was a year ahead of me and was doing the same thing. So we had the same manager, and we started auditioning for things and doing commercials when we were 16.
Woody Allen stayed so good because he never left New York. Howard Stern stayed so good because he never left New York - Mel Brooks when he just got out of New York was doing 'Blazing Saddles;' when he left New York he started doing stuff like 'Robin Hood Men In Tights' - he was in L.A. too long. He lost the edge.
I talked to some vets in L.A. about what they go through and do they think about their experiences a lot. I got a wide array of answers. Some people get very emotional, which is understandable. Two of my best friends growing up are in the armed services, and getting to represent those guys was a big honor for me.
I have one really nice watch. It's a white-face, stainless-steel Rolex Daytona. I wear it a lot. I got that in the middle of 'The Office.' All the guys in the writers' room were like, 'Let's all get a nice watch.' We were too busy to upgrade our lives in a big way, but we thought this was a nice symbolic gesture.
As soon as you start acting in an accent, you're sort of out of your comfort zone. Maybe people start getting used to accents after a long period of time. But as soon as you do that, it's not so much as capturing the sound of the way other people speak, it's being able to actually be and move around in the sound.
One of my great regrets, and I don't have many, is that I spent too long putting people's status and reputation ahead of their more important qualities. I learned far too late in life that a long list of letters after someone's name is no guarantee of compassion, kindness, humour, all the far more relevant stuff.
Even if people end up doing awful things, you can empathize with their motives when you know them. When you get to know the person, you can understand why they make those choices, even if they're bad. And oftentimes people do have good drives that are sympathetic and can even be seen as selfless and good-hearted.
I've never protected the president [in real life], but I have been a new dad, and I can tell you that being a new dad is pretty terrifying. I'm pretty sure that something about the president makes the stakes a little higher, but to me as a new father, nothing is more important or scary than protecting a daughter.
It's a hard thing for me to wrap my mind around the C word: celebrity. Rock stars are celebrities because they're larger than life. As an actor, you have to play the everyman and the everygirl. If you start treating people in the real world like assistants, that's not a good look. But my friends keep me grounded.
With physical prep work, you know if you go to the gym, you will get size. There's no chance it won't happen. The emotional prep work is a variable. You could step onto the set one day and have a disconnect with your thoughts and feelings and have a rough day acting because you can't quite tap into what you need.
For sure I think that at the end of the day if I got started a little sooner on stuff that was more written more permanent I would have just made a lot of mistakes earlier. I don't know if it would have led to earlier success but I think it would have led to thicker skin and it would have gotten the ball rolling.
I just look at the character and the arc of the character, and see if it's going to be challenging. We always want to challenge ourselves. That's the biggest thing that I look at. Is this going to be a challenge? Is this going to be something that I can try my best to create, that no one could see anyone else do?
It ain't easy to break out of a mold, but if you do your work, people will ultimately see what you're capable of. Too often, people find it easier to make assumptions and stick with what they believe. They put you in a place and it makes their job easier. The good people constantly search for something different.