Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I usually just pick a genre of movie that I feel like saluting and then go off and come up with something that I can sort of pay homage to. That's the great thing about our show is we've sort of created a landscape for 'Psych' where we're kind of allowed to go off and give shout-outs to movies that we love, genres that we love.
I suppose with any character that you play you always bring your personal experience to it. You always bring people that you know or that you've met and sort of - this is what I do, I mean, I don't know what anyone else does - but people that you know or that you've met that have affected you in certain ways, you bring into it.
I did a show called 'Freaks and Geeks' when I was very young. And I had the naivete and arrogance of youth. You know, I really assumed that when the show got cancelled, like, oh, it doesn't matter, you just keep rolling, you know. I'm about to be the biggest star of the world. And then I was met with five years of unemployment.
A franchise is dictated on the success of doing one film right, so if you can get it done correctly, you've got a chance of something else, but sometimes it just doesn't work that way. Ideally, it's insurance for the future; if you can do something, if you can find a character that people really do like, then you're very lucky.
Sometimes I take the watch, or I take the shoes, but usually the souvenir is to take the life you had with those directors, or the crew - the camera person, the lighting person. When you finish a film it's like a little death. You had a family for a bit, and you finish the movie and you probably will never see each other again.
So many things have to come together to get a creatively successful and financially successful film. Sometimes you'll have a movie that you're very proud of, and you think it transcended all of your expectations, but it doesn't come out at the right time. I have done movies that have never been released. That can be depressing.
After my bar mitzvah, I started to assimilate, to really not pay attention to my roots. The anti-Semitic experiences of my youth had been very painful. You try to put all that in the past and become a person of the world. I think that's the right thing to do. But it's not right to leave out who you really are. That's a tragedy.
I love Starship Troopers. That's really smart. I think he really could portray fascism in a comedic way. It's funny because both José [Padilha] and [Paul] Verhoeven were accused of being fascists for their movies because they had fascist leads. So, it's not going to have his tone, but there's going to be political satire in it.
But Al Jazeera America represents something more than news that isn’t profit or ratings driven — they represent foreign investment in a country where the two-party system outsourced your jobs. They represent facts over opinion and they represent our cultures coming together just a little more, whether you bigots like it or not.
When I say 'yes' to a movie it's usually because, to a greater or lesser extent, it's because I'm enthusiastic about the character. How well that character ultimately comes off depends on a lot of things: your relationship with the director and so on. But at first, you're on board because you think you can do something with it.
I directed my first music video for Sara Bareilles. I like writing and directing. I co-wrote '21 Jump Street' and I'm in that. To me, they all inform the other one. I think writing makes you a better actor, acting makes you a better writer, directing makes you better at both. To me, I'm just trying to learn as much as possible.
People are very uncomfortable when you call actors artists because there are a lot of actors out there that aren't artists - there are a lot of actors that are hired for very specific reasons that are shallow and have to do with sexual currency and what the industry thinks sells. Real actors are artists, they're expressionists.
I had a day off, and I was walking down the street one day, and this Mercedes pulls up alongside me, and Alec Guinness leaned out and said, 'What are you doing, Kenny?' I said, 'I'm just walking around,' and he said, 'Do you want to come and see an oasis with my wife and I?' There was nothing arrogant or flash about him at all.
The fact is that HBO is doing the kind of films and the kind of stories that the movie industry used to do. You look at a lot of the specialty sections of studios that have gone under... and there's no doubt in my mind why filmmakers and screenwriters and actors are ending up at a place like HBO. They do it better than anybody.
I've known I wanted to do this ever since I was a little kid and I used to get in trouble at church for goofing off all the time: mocking the preacher, imitating people and the things they did. I later learned my mother used to be just as goofy as I was when she was younger. I mean, Eddie Murphy in 'Coming to America?' My hero.
I did not move into developing or processing color. I stayed with black and white. I still think to this day that I prefer to work in black and white if it has to do with poetry or anything other than specific reality. I have worked in color when I thought it was the appropriate way to express the thought that I was working on.
The abundance that is offered to us by leaving behind the fossil fuel paradigm is very promising for the world and the people of the world. We will have cleaner air, water, and food; we will have more resources to share with our people. There will be more economic freedom because people will be able to harvest their own energy.
How can you not have preconceived notions and expectations of who Kelsey Grammer is gonna be? He's been in my living room since my TV was on. And he exceeded them all, somehow. He's such a beautiful and open-hearted collaborator and mentor and such a great family man. I was just lucky to get to work with him and learn from him.
Racism was just a tool to deal with frustration and pain and that people are in denial about the way we feel and desperately trying to control their environment the way their lives are. And ultimately their scapegoats aren't going to make them feel better, it's just going to increase hatred and the problem gets worse and worse.
We all share beauty. It strikes us indiscriminately. There is no end to the beauty for the person who is aware. Even the cracks between the sidewalk contain geometric patterns of amazing beauty. If we take pictures of them and blow up the photographs, we realize we walk on beauty every day, even when things seem ugly around us.
The first thing, when I read the script, is that I need to care about what happens and feel compelled by the story and engaged by the characters. It needs to resonate with me, even if what the characters are going through is not something that I have experienced in my life. I have to feel like it has some sort of meaning to me.
Harlem for me is Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Washington, D.C., in one place. You have very significant churches that have had national ramifications. At the same time, you have politics. On top of all that, you have entertainment because you have 70 years of music that came out of here, and if you scratch that, gangsterism happens.
My brother used to say that when you deal with women, it's difficult to remove emotions from an argument. I never really knew what he meant. Then I read an article that said when it comes to emotion and logic, men's and women's brains are different - my brother was right! Women are very mysterious, but that's part of their joy.
The fact is that, in prison, you can't just go and be locked up and serve your time. That's not an option. You get locked up, and then you're going to go through hell and, if you're lucky, you'll come out somewhat of a human being, but you're probably going to be beyond traumatized, for the rest of your life. That's ridiculous!
When I was on 'Dallas,' I was known to audiences of the '80s. And then when my sons, who are in their 30s now, were going to college, 'Dallas' was the cult thing to watch because it was being done on the soap channels, so a whole new generation saw it. And then I have the young fans that knew me from 'Step By Step' in the '90s.
Many Republicans have always reminded me of professional WWF wrestlers. They come into the ring all pumped up and acting like they're invincible and that they're going to destroy their opponent. Then they get hit once and fall down and roll around in agony and suddenly seem immobilized by pain, calling for the ref to intervene.
I would never ever, ever, ever, ever do it again [All My Children]. It was the scariest thing I've ever done. I have such respect for people who do it, who can do it. What happened was they caught me at a good moment. I could use the money and this came along and it was with Susan and I thought, "Susan Lucci. I have to do this.
Women, the way I see it, are very evolved people. They're more mature, they're more aware of their feelings, in touch with their feelings. They're connected to things that matter more in life. They know what's important. Men basically run around like idiots until we meet somebody who can show us that those things are important.
There's a lot of hyperventilation that takes off before the [Sundance Film] Festival, a lot of buzz. Every year we hear, this is going to be the new this, this is going to be the new that, and it never is. The buzz just doesn't mean anything. I'm glad it doesn't. Because I think the festival shows that what succeeds is content.
In 1973, I was shown a graphic of how dependent the United States was on nonrenewable resources like oil and coal and that little was being done to change that. It seemed irrefutable that we needed a change in direction or we'd be paying a huge price down the road. That's when I made a commitment to become a political activist.
What's always got me is the fact that when people talked on the telly about Iraq, before Afghanistan kicked off, you'd get only these public-school-type army officers talking about what was going on out there. I kept thinking, 'Why don't we get the true voice of the squaddie? Why don't we hear from the lads on the battlefield?'
To be really in shape, it's dynamic. It's got to be a lot of different everything, always switching it up. So a good day for me would be hit the gym, do some sort of cross training in the gym and then go surfing and then maybe take a jiu-jitsu class at night or go swimming at night or go stand up paddle boarding in the evening.
After I began to make some money, my brain-damaged accountant put me in one business after another that went bad. The only one that panned out was a small bank, an old Scottish firm with London offices in Pall Mall. I was a director. We sold out to a larger bank. That was the only successful venture I've had, apart from acting.
I was incredibly intimidated playing Lincoln Lee in the alternate universe, which was the first role I played on 'Fringe' because I was actually the head of a Fringe division and the head of a unit that was going out and I had to lead entire SWAT teams of people. I really questioned in myself, 'Can I carry that responsibility?'
My fear represented the failure of the human system. It is a sad truth of our creation: Something is amiss in our design, there are loose ends of our psychology that are simply not wrapped up. My fears were the dirty secrets of evolution. They were not provided for, and I was forced to construct elaborate temples to house them.
And it soon became obvious to me that I had to process and keep my relationship with my ex-wife separate from that of my children. They didn't need or want too much personal information about our relationship. Change is good, and ultimately, creating a new path at this point in my life is energizing, creative, and rejuvenating.
I walk in, and people go, 'Oh, look who it is! It's the devil! Speak of the devil!' It's fun. I'm having a lot of fun. I'm not going to lie. It's a little bit like being able to say anything you want to and getting away with it. 'Rush' was fun because he thought he was immortal, but this is more fun because Lucifer is immortal.
This generation has lost the true meaning of romance. There are so many songs that disrespect women. You can’t treat the woman you love as a piece of meat. You should treat your love like a princess. Give her love songs, something with real meaning. Maybe I’m old fashioned but to respect the woman you love should be a priority.
I was telling somebody just the other day, there's technically such a hierarchy in this business. You have film, that's the ideal; then you have TV, and things like web series do not claim as much cred, but the fact is, if the material is solid and I believe and trust in the team that's involved, I don't care what format it is.
Out of all the ridiculous religion stories - which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous - the silliest one I've ever heard is, 'Yeah, there's this big, giant universe, and it's expanding, and it's all going to collapse on itself, and we're all just here, just 'cuz. Just 'cuz.' That to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever.
People never understand what a friendship is. I'll tell you what a friendship is to me. Friendship to me is, if my friends need my little finger to live, I'm going to have it cut off. I'm going to the hospital, they cut off my finger, and maybe I have a gold finger instead, and I become famous. But I still give it to my friend.
I look for an interesting and often times, fresh character. Something different that what is done all the time or than I've done recently. I look at who is directing. Those two variables as well as a third, which is the content and the quality of the screenplay. I look at the arcs of the scenes and characters and relationships.
The character and the actor in a long-running series slowly become one. I think there must be funny stories about actors who, in the pilot for a TV series, did some weird thing with their eyes, or some speech impediment or something, and the next thing you know, it's eight years later, and they're still doing that freaking gag.
The reason they came up with the ratings board is that there are a lot of movies out there, and parents need some guidance. Not only for the kids, but for adults, as well. If you don't like to see a certain kind of film, there should be some rating, so that you know what you're getting into. But the present system doesn't work.
Eventually I got the call for 'Iron Man,' and I read sides that had nothing to do with what I did in the movie, and I performed it once while no one was in the room - it was videotaped, and I'm sure Shane Black was watching it from his helicopter or something. And then I got a call the next day that I was going down to shoot it.
My father wasn't perfect. He had a temper. I took some of that. He would snap, but the older he got, he started calming down. He learned about life, but the thing that he taught my whole family was that family was the most important thing and, no matter what, if a family member needs you, you go and help them out; you get there.
Because work takes up a lot of time, you have to choose your moments for really letting rip. I hang out with my friends and my family and I spend time with my kids when I'm not working. They don't see my being an actor as exotic. For them, it's just an everyday thing. Sometimes it's amusing to them and other times, embarrassing.
This is a generalization, but I think women's brains are more accessible to ideas and differences. And they can accept stuff that's weirder. I think there are enough intelligent men out there who get it, but women will watch behavior that's different and process it better. In general, women are less threatened by their emotions.
When I encountered rich people for the first time, I discovered that not only do they holiday in places that are hard to find on a map, but that they also use the names of seasons as verbs. When they asked me, 'Where did you summer and winter growing up?' I would usually say, 'As a child? The same place I springed and autumned.'
I don't understand shopping, it doesn't make any sense to me. As guys, we decide we want something and then we go out and buy it. Women go to the store having no idea what they're going to buy, or what they're even doing, it's like a whole different sport. It's like going to a football game to maybe watch a game. I don't get it.