Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Any swagger is just defense. When you're reminded so much of who you are by people - not a fame thing, but with my size, constantly, growing up - you just either curl up in a corner in the dark or you wear it proudly, like armor or something. You can turn it on its head and use it yourself before anybody else gets a chance.
When I was a kid, I thought I saw a ghost in the forest when I was on a bush walk, like a walk through the forest. I saw something weird pass from one side of the track to the other, and it was sort of a white, blurry... it's hard to describe, really - something that was almost see-through, but it just moved in front of me.
My roomate at 'Harvey' is this guy Morgan Spector, an actor in town, and I've taught him Hive and Fastrack. Others have played For the Win, but Cards Against Humanity has been the dressing room hit. We've had the understudies, even Jim Parsons playing it. Our dressing room is practically sponsored by Cards Against Humanity.
'Jaws' has turned into one of those films that when you see it on TV, you turn it on, and you can't turn it off. So, in that regard, I've seen it a million times. It's the only film I'm aware of that could be released now for the first time and have the same impact that it did then. You can't say that about a lot of movies.
It's nice that I've grown up with the same friends since I was 12, I have a very close knit set of them... I grew up with a lot of people who a lot of other people regarded as heroes, and no one ever came to me for advice, no one ever came to me for protection, and so I don't ever really think I've been looked at as a hero.
I'm way bigger than people think I am. I'm way bigger. I've been underrated all my life, and that's fine. I have privacy. I can walk the street without being hassled. I can be a regular guy. The price to give that up is so horrible. When you become a part of the hysteria - it's not completely in my hands - you have to hide.
I don't know what art is exactly, but I'm pretty sure it's not something you get paid to do. For myself this is a job. I think it's easier to get better at it if you don't lose your identity in it. You do whatever you can to try to understand the character. Because they're paying you feel like you should be doing something.
I did standup for a lot of years, too, but when you come out as a standup, you get the feeling from a crowd - it's a kind of a 'make me laugh' attitude. But when you come out as an improvisor, they realize that they're suggesting everything you do. So they're already invested in the scene, and they actually want it to work.
I don't want to denounce musicals because they certainly have a message they want to communicate. But with straight plays, there is a focus on what's going on between people and relationships. I think so much is happening in the world at the moment, so many changes politically and culturally, writers are writing about that.
My whole life revolved around TV as a kid. I would come home and make sure I finished my homework every night by 8 o'clock, generally so that I could sit down and watch TV from 8 to 10. As a kid, it was 'Family Ties' and 'Roseanne' and 'Growing Pains' and 'Perfect Strangers' and 'Golden Girls.' I mean, I watched everything.
When you do what I've done - the normal Hollywood way, where you let people do things for you - and then you make certain choices where you have to learn to do it for yourself, which is how you should do it, it caused me to get way behind in stuff. I wouldn't change a thing because it's been a very important learning thing.
Things don't just fall into place because you have a dream. You're always going to have those negative thoughts. Our minds love to play with us - we're going to be our own worst critics - but I just say to myself, 'File it back.' I just try to bring any negative thoughts to light and deal with them, so I can file them away.
Acting was something I did growing up. I never it took it too seriously; it was just one of those things I got into high school and was like, 'Nah, I don't want to continue acting.' Cause I got into it professionally by local theater, and from there, I just decided to do sports and be more a high school kid and have my fun.
I don't think we're necessarily drawing from that specific sort of storyline, because I think we're all just super-blessed and grateful to have a show on HBO and to be working together and employed. But we are definitely speaking to things that our friends have experienced and others in our realm have experienced, for sure.
I try to be an ethical, moral person and a nice person, and I like to have that reflected in my comedy. I'm not a mean comedian, and I don't think that my comedy is mean. I think that for the most part, it's more focused on the diversity that we all handle and try to provide a distraction from the disaster of modern living.
The actual getting into the gym and working out process was easier, but the eating was harder. I had to eat every two hours. At one point, my trainer said, 'Put anything in your mouth. Go to McDonald's, get the biggest shake possible. I just need to get calories in you.' Because my body fat at the time was only, like, 7.5%.
Every time you need protein, get yourself a boiled egg in. But your main meals would be chicken, or hummus, or white fish. You can lose about a pound a day. But you can do this stuff over a period of time, and you can have your happy days. It's about motivation and it has to be something that's realistic for you to keep up.
It's something I'd find rather distracting in a historical piece, looking at characters that have obviously just gotten off their Ab Blaster. You see a piece set in the 1300s or the 1800s, and you've got characters who have perfect abs and are incredibly well-groomed, not a hair out of place, and it just doesn't make sense.
I love sitting down with my friends at dinner and actually telling them a story, as opposed to going, "Hey, did you see that thing I posted on Instagram?" For me, I would so much rather sit there and actually share a story with somebody and have somebody tell me about their trip, or things like that. I don't need to see it.
I started acting at seven years old. It took me 20 years to understand that if I was going to make my dreams a reality, I had to take the reigns. I had to learn something about being productive and being self what's the word I'm looking for? Self-sufficient, but I had to be productive at all costs and I had to make product.
It's now or never. This is simple to say, but then to live like that is not easy at all, I'm sorry. You have to be aware enough so that you can see situations as they pass in front of you and be able to catch the instant, whatever it is. Many times, you just don't see the moment when you were yawning and then it's too late.
Before 2010, I had a vision. I saw a family in my mind that I wanted to have. And I was pushing and driving hard for my picture, and then I realized everyone has their own journey. I have to support what they want to do. I have to support the vision that they have for themselves, not my vision. That was excruciating for me.
When you're talking to a person, it only matters what they are perceiving. You only need them to perceive you as a loving husband. You don't necessarily need to be one. That's always a good road, if you actually are one. But what people are perceiving will dictate what their life is, and ultimately what your interaction is.
If you're dumb enough to volunteer for the army, I don't see why we're supposed to feel so bad when you get shot. I'm not saying we should throw a party or anything, but is it such a tragedy? If I'd gotten shot before I made 'Garden State', yeah, that's a tragedy, but some red-state hick getting his legs blown off? Come on.
What naturally stops you making the film is there is no more money in the budget. That's really what it is. If you had an unlimited budget, if you were a billionaire and you financed your own movies, then you can either date, because you can sit in an editing room for six years, like Howard Hughes, and never finish anything.
As my friend said to me, when you have children, typically in a second marriage, when you're older and you get married again to a woman who would have children, you must always remember that you make sure the children attend a college where the commencement ceremonies are held in a facility with a wheelchair accessible ramp.
It's a funny thing: my name in Arabic means hope, so I suppose I have to live by that principle. Hope is desire, feeling, and investing in a projection of something that doesn't yet exist. At its best, you witness its alchemy in your life, turning something that was once in the mind into reality. At its worst, it's delusion.
My mother would say, before I left the house, 'Remember Art, hugs are better than drugs.' And I believed my mother, I believed everything she said - until the first time I got high at a party. I leaned back, and I went, 'God, this is way better than when my Uncle Perry hugs me. What else has my mother been lying to me about?
I started acting when I was 9. I did smaller parts here and there as a kid, and then as I grew older I started resisting it, because I didn't like the idea of being, at the time, number four of the Skarsgård actors. So in high school I majored in science and was like, "Maybe I'll do something rebellious and become a doctor."
I had a fantastic teacher in high school. I had one of those guys you dream of having, who molds your life and inspires you to go in a particular direction, and he was quite brilliant. His name was Cecil Pickett, and a lot of the kids from my high-school drama class are in professional show business and have done quite well.
When I came to Nashville, I was sort of experimenting with a new identity, experimenting with the country world and country writers. I realized I needed to take a step back from that, to be true to some of the music I've been doing over the years and to put that into the world before I move forward and redefine myself again.
It's a fun uphill struggle, making health insurance as a comedian, actor, and author. But it's hard to explain to people how I make a living. In New York, most people know enough creative types that I make some sense. But when I'm talking to someone like my suburban cousins or my mom's friends, it doesn't always go smoothly.
[ The Finest Hours] reminded me a lot of a film I did called Unstoppable in that you have a driving thriller aspect of the film and it's not all that complicated of a story and there's a simple elegance to it. I liked that. It is also driven by a really strong romance and ordinary men doing extraordinary things. I love that.
Figure out whether or not you believe in yourself, and if you don't, find a way to. Because even more than you want it, you must believe it. And learn about yourself. The rhythm of one's spirit is just as important as what you look like or what you sound like. Who are you? What's your voice? What are you dying to contribute?
In spite of my great admiration for individual splendid talents I do not accept the star system. Collective creative effort is the root of our kind of art. That requires ensemble acting and whoever mars that ensemble is committing a crime not only against his comrades but also against the very art of which he is the servant.
'Rust' really started with the passing of my dad, and me really looking back inward to my self about where I stand with all things on a faith/religious/spiritual level. And it's really put me on this interesting road and very educational, I might add, road back to understanding the role of faith in God and Christ in my life.
Nobody really truly supporting independent filmmakers anymore. It's just dire. There's a lot of bad filmmaking, and there's a lot of people worshipping some terrible filmmakers. It's a waste of all of our time, if you don't feel anything. We are an age of YouTube kids. We don't care so much anymore. It's all about marketing.
There was an incident in Argentina when I was making a film called 'The Warrior and the Sorceress.' There were, like, 40, 50 sword fighters and martial artists on the set, and one of the sword fighters challenged me. I said, 'Look, you don't want to fight me. Nobody wants to fight me. You gotta be crazy to want to fight me.'
If there are a couple of adjectives people use to describe me, anger is usually in there. I've never taken that as criticism. It's the way I naturally communicate. But I'm not faux-angry, like Lewis Black, or angry like a gun-toting crazy person. I'm just angry in a mild way - it's not like I'm going to do anything about it.
There isn't a damn thing wrong with prayer. During the war I served with a guy who prayed all the time, carried a Bible with him everywhere. We all mocked him to no end. One day, that Bible stopped a bullet, my hand to God, that Bible stopped a bullet. If only he'd had another Bible in front of his face, he'd be alive today.
I was watching TV at age 9 or 10, and my mom said that I came from the front room and I told her that I want to act. And she said if you want to do this at 18, then you can. It was a very simple story, yet, I do not even remember the conversation that I had with my mother. Until she reminded me of the story many years later.
We all have ambitions, but only the few achieve. A man thinks of a good thing and says: 'Now if I only had the money I'd put that through.' The word 'if' was a dent in his courage. With character fully established, his plan well thought out, he had only to go to those in command of capital and it would have been forthcoming.
I loved the movie theater so I always saw a lot of movies. And then there was a play, I saw in the local paper, they were having auditions for a play of a book I had read. Which was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. So I said, "oh, I've read this, so I'm perfect for the part of the lead." His name is escaping me.
For me, it was very important to be part of a boxing film that actually explores the psychological aspects of the sport, more than just the physical aspects. I haven't seen boxing movies very often that really go so deep into the minds of the boxers. It really puts out how much it is about strategy and tactics and technique.
No matter all of your credits and accomplishments - you can be forgotten in a trice. The idea that you have to go back and start again after considerable success can destroy you if you're not strong. I never lost track of who I am and what I can do, because I continually find things to do, but not everyone has that resource.
When you see Hitler burning paintings by Salvador Dali and Picasso he's telling you that this time period and these men and this culture didn't exist, and I've seen that happen in other countries, Sudan for instance, it's not enough to kill them you have to destroy all of their markings that they left that was their history.
If I spend all my time being upset about having lost a job, then the next however many auditions I have are going to be useless. So as you're going through the process, you get excited and put your all into it. But you don't get carried away, because until you do the thing, nothing hasn't happened yet. The rest is just talk.
I had a fairly enlightened dad, though if you looked at his resume, it might not seem that way. He was a chartered accountant for Price Waterhouse. He was strict, and we had a very ordered life. To this day, I am the least materialistic person I know, because my father didn't raise me to just go out and buy this or that car.
I was one of the only people of color at my grade school and also my high school. It's weird recollecting on my childhood, I think, because my brothers are all white. We all share the same father but different mothers. I guess I kind of associated white, but I was occasionally reminded in a really negative way that I wasn't.
The thing is, the kids always rebel against what the parents try to push on them so I'm going to pretend like I don't want my son to hear the rock. I'm going to listen to it only in my private chambers. He'll hear echoes of it and say: "What was that you were listening to papa?" And I'll say: "Nothing son, you're not ready."