Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I had three points I wanted to make. That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who's not doing a good job. But I didn't make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.
Donald Trump had a hit TV show on NBC for 14 years! He was covered by every major newspaper for 30 years. The idea that any one person humanized... He's been the most human figure for decades. The reason he won is because he knows how to use the media and he's a great communicator, whether you agree with the message or not.
You can't just take an aspirin and sit around and have 12 donuts and think, 'I took my aspirin so I'm not going to have a heart attack.' It's really important each person take personal responsibility for their health. You can't keep thinking that someone else is going to take care of it. You have to be part of the solution.
I'm just trying to touch the world and touch the people and just get good material. And show them that we can get it done. Just because you're African American, you still can touch the masses. And that's my goal. I won't stop until that goal is continued to push it hard to the world that we are the universal person as well.
I haven't done as many films as I would have liked. A lot of my contemporaries have done more. I don't have 'I will be a movie star' emblazoned on anything, but I'd like do a bit more screen stuff and then when the time is right come back to theatre. When it is good, theatre takes a lot of beating both to watch and perform.
We're living in a time where movies are very unimportant. They're not leaving a footprint on your heart. We're going to the movies now and we're going, "Oh, man, that was cool! That was thrilling! That was a ride!" But, we're not walking away anymore thinking, "I just experienced something that could change the way I live."
I went to school with Steven Wright who was the shyest guy I knew, and one day someone suddenly told me that he was in a club doing standup comedy. I went down to his club and he was great. Another friend of mine, who was pretty much a thief by trade, was hosting the show. So I thought if these guys can do it then so can I.
I have always been down to test what I can do and push the limits of my acting. I have always wanted to try new genres and stuff - but I love comedy. I grew up on comedy, and I love having a good time and making people laugh. But it is also really nice to switch it around and make people think and feel some darker emotions.
If you can forgive yourself then you will no longer see the reflection of your own internal judgement in the faces of the people around you. And if you can do that then suddenly you’ll be in a whole different universe because the universe we all exist in is the one where we’re all so terrified of the judgement of our peers.
[Chickens] are very frenetic. So if you think about it and you look back in other movies, like if someone's taking a crazy bus ride somewhere and it's like, 'Oh, what makes this bus ride crazy?' There's a chicken in the aisle, or like there's a chicken in a crate. So I just think the presence of chickens makes things crazy.
To me, Fight Club was a comedy. When [David] Fincher sent me the book and I read it, the first thing I asked him was, "This is a comedy, right?" he said, "Yeah, that's the whole point," and I said, "Okay, I'm in." I certainly wasn't imagining myself as a dramatic actor when I was running around in my underwear in that film.
My friend Jonathan had a great tree house. It was awesome. It was like a big fort up in this tall magnolia tree That's where we would conduct our very important business, I'm sure, with all our bikes leaning up against a tree and no girls allowed, handling all sorts of important things you handle when you're seven or eight.
I went to a school that was founded on a lot of very radical ideals of how education should be changed. But what's happening to schools like that sort of all over the country is in economic pressure they're becoming more and more preparatory because that's what people will really pay the money for private schooling for now.
After I finished school, I headed for Los Angeles, thinking, 'Movies. Beaches.' But I wanted to do serious stage work, so I upped sticks and moved to New York to study. I did the usual day jobs to support myself - waiting on tables, washing dishes, parking cars, anything to pay the rent. I was a terrible waiter, by the way.
One night I was standing on Third Avenue playing my guitar, when this big Irish policeman came strolling by, and stopped to listen to my singing and playing. When I was done, he politely handed me a ticket for disturbing the peace, while at the same time telling me how much he liked my voice. I wish I still had that ticket.
I spent most of my 20s playing music. I was in a band and we worked really hard and did not get very far. I was really close to being this guy who used to be in this band who is still playing and trying to get some recordings together, but I got really lucky. That's never lost in me, that I went through Saturday Night Live.
With Mel [Brooks], only one time and that was later on during "Young Frankenstein" - never with Zero [Mostel] and never with Mel except I was writing every day, and then Mel would come to the house and read what I'd written. And then he'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, yeah, OK. But we need a villain or we need whatever it was.
I think Donald Trump's interpretation of marriage is something that he himself doesn't really believe in. 'Traditional marriage' is where two people love each other, commit to each other, care for each other over the years. It is a meaningful ceremony, and his interpretation of that is not recognizing what real marriage is.
I've had broken bones and cuts and dashes and tears from movies, but when I was five, my mom put the biscuits up high so we wouldn't be helping ourselves. So, one day I asked to stand up on a chair to get a biscuit, and it fell, and the corner of the chair went right into the side of my eye, and it made a big hole in there.
What I love about 'Breaking Bad' is the reflection of many people's - it's more real in terms of people have faults, people have character traits that they don't like about themselves. It resembles more of what the human journey really is and it's less fantastic and hero-driven than other characters and shows that we watch.
I was offered a series by John Carpenter after I did the movie 'Christine,' and I would've been a leading man after that. I would have played a private investigator. And I was offered a great deal - I would be involved in the direction, casting, everything, and whatever. It was whatever an actor wants, and I didn't take it.
You have to be willing to be manipulated in the first place because you can either recognize that in your director and then fight it because you don't trust them, but I'm not going to let them manipulate me. Or you think they're on to something and that they're manipulating something out of you which is interesting and new.
I am very, very aware at all times. I'm watching myself, I'm listening to myself, I'm judging myself, critiquing myself all the time, and I will know when I do something and I will immediately say, "Can I do another one, because I didn't quite get that thing," or that I wanted to do something there and it didn't quite work.
There was a time when I was offered two episodes of 'Alias,' that show with Jennifer Garner which J.J. Abrams did back before he became the mega producer and super successful director. I instead decided I wanted to play this family guy on a short-lived UPN 'Second Time Around.' It starred Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Ari Parker.
I firmly believe that we are all given signs and dreams and put in situations that define who we were and who we are to become. All of it points towards our destiny. All we need to do is listen carefully to the messages and follow our dreams. It is in our dreams that we find our true identities and where our destiny awaits.
It's great when a director like Cameron Crowe can take what you do and fit it into what he's doing. If someone's a fan of you already, they can take what you do and make it work for what they're doing. You don't know their vision, and you're thinking, 'How is this guy going to take what I do and make it work in this movie?'
I began to think that the finest modern writer was the screen actor. This was in the spirit of the Fifties where a very antiliterary literature was emerging - Kenneth Patchen and others. I kind of believed what Nietzsche said, that nothing not written in your blood is worth reading; it's just more pollution of the airwaves.
I love singing, but I feel very naked and very vulnerable when I'm singing sometimes. With acting, I always think that it doesn't matter what you are as long as you're truthful in that moment. But with singing, you always have to hit the note. It's not like you can just go, 'Oh, it doesn't really matter what note you sing!'
As we were negotiating, I didn't have a script. Once the deal is closed, they let you read the script. So, I got the script and was reading it like, "Oh, please be good!," because I'd already signed on the dotted line. And I read it and just went, "Okay, I'm going to be okay. Thank god!" It was a really funny, moving story.
I dabbled a little bit in acting in high school, and then I forgot about it completely. And then at about 25 I went to a class. I don't think anybody in my family thought it was an intelligent choice. I don't think anybody thought I'd succeed, which is understandable. I think they were just happy that I was doing something.
Before I read the 'Bloody Sunday' script, I have to admit I hadn't thought about it that much. There was probably even part of me which assumed there was no smoke without fire. That the Catholics who were shot must have done something to provoke such a response from the army. I was extremely ignorant of the whole situation.
I went to college on a classical piano scholarship. My grandmother made me practice one full hour a day. Every day. Man. I thought all she wanted was for me not to have any fun. Next thing you know, you have a career in music. Now, not everybody's going to go on and be Mozart or Michael Jackson. But music makes you smarter.
It's not uncommon to hear people say that the re-entry into their lives is very hard. A lot of actors say that the hardest thing about working is not working, because you go from one of the most structured environments in the world to a place of no structure. Maybe that's why you see someone go from movie to movie to movie.
You can look at the Emmys two ways in you're nominated. It's either win-win or lose-lose. If things go very well and I win, you still have to get up in front of a group of people and risk having God knows what come out of your mouth. If you won't win, you have to breathe deeply and smile and clap with a camera in your face.
I know it affected me when I saw certain actors growing up. I had a drama teacher that would take us to see plays in New York, and it was seeing James Earl Jones and Raul Julia - I mean, this guy comes from the place my mother comes from. He's doing Shakespeare right now, and it doesn't seem to matter that he has an accent.
I often put any project I write in a different decade just to roll the thought around in my head. There's a thriller I've written that I think would be nice to set in the '70s or '80s, just to take cell phones away from the movie. There's nothing like the piercing ring of an old-school telephone to really scare an audience.
The online credential, the online certificate is very different from an on campus certificate. And we really believe that online learning and the EdX platform and the EdX portal, these are ways in which - you can think of them as a rising tide that's going to lift all boats whether for students worldwide or on our campuses.
My interest in acting came from seeing Broadway shows on summer trips to New York as a child. It was the original production of 'A Chorus Line' in an easy tie with the first 10 -15 minutes of Dustin Hoffman in 'Tootsie' that hooked me on the romantic idea that the impossible, difficult life of a struggling actor was for me.
[The huge success of Curse of the Black Pearl] made perfect sense to me on the one hand, and at the same time, it made no sense at all, which I kind of enjoyed. Even now, with the dolls and the cereal boxes and snacks and fruit juices, it all just feels fun to me, in a Warholian way. It's absurd. It doesn't get more absurd.
I love acting in the theater,but I'm fascinated with acting on film. If it's a film or a play or whatever, if the writing is good and you really feel passionate about it, you just can't lose. You'll grow from it. Whether it's a success or not is neither here nor there; you're going to grow as an artist from this experience.
When I think about him, I think about him as John and John Wick. I think of John Wick being the assassin part of John. I would say that guy has strong will; never gives up; he's kind; and there's honor about him. He's also a man of strength. There are even some vulnerabilities to him. Most importantly, he's good at his job.
We started the family Bible after slavery was abolished. My great-grandmother remembered the Bible being started, which meant that she was a slave as a young girl. When she died, the Bible was at least 105 years old, so she must have been nearly 115 years old. Her daughter, my grandmother, died at 97, and her husband at 98.
'Luke Cage' is about a reluctant superhero who lives in the shadows in Harlem. He has to decide if he's going to step up and fight for the heart of the city and defend the people against Cornell 'Cottonmouth' Stokes, my character, who kinda wants to keep everything in order and intact. I'm the criminal element in the story.
There's a gap between what I want to do, what I do on camera, and what gets edited. Right? So the goal is to try and close the gaps. What's the biggest compliment is if I read a review and it's exactly what I wrote down in my diary before ever filming it. That's really cool. That's the biggest signifier of closing the gaps.
I get very surprised and shocked because there is so much prejudice against me as a celebrity, instead of them looking at the quality of my work. Just look at the work. Forget about who I am. But there is so much perception in the art business that blurs that insight. The work speaks, so just look and then judge from there.
One day very soon, we'll be asked: what did we do. And we will say: we did everything we could... we have to... because if we don't there won't be anyone left to ask. We have never faced a crisis this big, that we have never had better ideas to solve. This is our only home. We can choose today to make a world of difference.
How many films are there about friendships between teenagers? And how many projects are there dealing with friendships among adults? True friendships - really dealing with the intimacy behind what happened then, and how long you've known each other, and the wounds that haven't healed. That's what [About Alex] film is about.
So if I'm 36, and I have my 19-year-old self, I'm pulling him to the side and saying, 'Listen bruh, throwing on your Timbs and your fitted hat and strolling campus trying to get a girl to say yes, or going to the club hoping you bring a girl home, that's not the way to go about healthy relationships. You need to step back.'
There have been many things in my life that have tried to break me, going back to when I was two and three years old. It never stops - life will always push you to your limit. The only way I've managed to survive it all is believing in myself and knowing, somehow, beyond everything telling me otherwise, that I will succeed.
I like auditioning. I like working on material. I just love working. I like the chance to work on material. Sometimes it helps to not be going into a room cold and to know people. I've spent a lot of years getting to know people in the business, and that really helps. It depends. You can have some pretty terrible auditions.