Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
One of the most recent things we did [in Perceval Press] is a reissue of a fantastic documentary about Russian prison tattoo culture by Alix Lambert called The Mark of Cain. We've done books from Twilight of Empire, that actually has forewords by Howard Zinn and Dennis Kucinich and others, to books of poetry, photography, painting - all kinds of books.
I don't have an idea for a play until after I've finished writing it. I write first, and come up with what it's about later. My technique could be compared to having a large canvas and coming in every day and putting a dot on it somewhere, and after several years - literally - I begin to say, That reminds me of an elephant, so I think I'll make it one.
When you're working opposite Halle Berry, you're going to get a lot. So you have to give a lot. That said, what I've found striking in the past few days is that people are aware of a good chemistry that exists between us on screen. If that's so, it's due to the fact that she and I have a real liking for each other in real life and a real mutual respect.
I am not an educated person. I didn't come up through a ballet company. I came up through burlesque. So I have a lot of inferiority feelings concerning my own lack of education, my entry into show business. I'm not a Baryshnikov. I'm not a Nureyev. I came up in vaudeville. Strippers. So I've always had these feelings. But I think they've also helped me.
Initially I objected to the Data makeup. I said, "Why do I need this makeup? Why can't I just look like me?" In fact, I said to Gene Roddenberry, "Don't you think that by this time in history, they would've figured out how to make skin look like skin?" And he said, "What makes you think that what you have isn't better than skin?" And I went, "Um, okay."
Alejandro Amenábar is a very interesting filmmaker. I had really liked The Others, which was a movie he made with Nicole Kidman a few years ago. He made a very compelling case about how much he wanted me to be in this movie. Whenever a really passionate, talented filmmaker seems to have an interest in me, I take it very seriously because I like to work.
It is one of the few elements in the process that a director really, really can't control: an actor's performance. If you have a director that understands that, it's comforting to an actor. You're starting the relationship more as a collaborator, rather than as an employee or some kind of a soldier trying to execute something you don't organically feel.
There is no best anything in art. Phillip [Hoffman] isn't better than Heath [Ledger]; Joaquin [Phoenix] isn't better than David [Strathairn] or Terence [Howard]. They aren't better than me. We all do different things. It's more of a celebration of a lot of great work than to give the gold to somebody. The underappreciated factor certainly has gone away.
Turning fully toward the glass, I consider what I see. This reflected version of myself, wet, shaking, rumpled, pinched, and slightly stoop, would be alarming were it not for the self-satisfied expression pasted across my face. I would ask the obvious question, 'what are you smiling about?' But I already know the answer: 'It just gets better from here.'
I don't like to have to depend on someone else to reset the props. It's like, "No, you've gotta take responsibility for it." I know how things fit and feel. To reset that stuff myself, it's easy. The prop guys are hilarious because I'll have one set of gloves and I'll keep reusing them to get the most out of it. They're like, "We've got boxes of these."
That movie [A Series of Unfortunate Events] told four books in two hours, and we have two hours per book. So we have eight hours to tell four books, and if people watch we'll get to tell more of them. There's only thirteen books, so there's only going to be two more seasons, but that allows for a lot of time to be in character and to maintain character.
The first time I remember women reacting to me was when we were filming Hud in Texas. Women were literally trying to climb through the transoms at the motel where I stayed. At first, it's flattering to the ego. At first. Then you realize that they're mixing me up with the roles I play - characters created by writers who have nothing to do with who I am.
The only thing I can say in comparison is when I play comedy characters; I definitely put empathy in right up at the forefront. I think if you believe in someone because you not necessarily feel sorry for them, but you can see how they are the way they are and you can laugh with them, but rather than laugh at them, you are on their side and I think it's
The idea of the industrial fishing affects everyone. Those factory ships play this game of hit and run with the international fishing limits, and somebody said it's like hunting squirrels with a bulldozer. They pull everything in and they are only looking for certain types of fish and everything else dies and they just throw it back. It's like chumming.
I wish everyone could wake up with a birdie on your shoulder, reminding them that this could be your last day. As you get older, you see how rapidly the years and decades fly by, so I would encourage anyone, no matter the age, to seize their life and be fully present. Savor every moment and go after your dreams. Be relentless in pursuing your happiness.
When you're starting out as an actor people are very interested in who you are because they want to know where they can put you. And quite often, and we're all guilty of this is our lives, we judge very quickly and we pigeon-hole people very quickly based on how they look and how they talk and how they dress and we think: "Oh yeah, we know who you are."
Doing my first movie, I realized I could get into real bad habits. If you're the star, all you have to do is show up, and 20 people say, 'Do you want anything? What is it? Let me get it for you.' Believe me, you get spoiled very quickly. I saw some of my contemporaries allow themselves to have that fame, thinking they could handle it. It messed them up.
All of my plays have puzzled some people, and I'm happy to say delighted a few, but a lot of people have just not seen how quite to look at them. And this film... if you like my writing, you'll like this film. If you don't, you won't like the film. It's pretty faithful to - it's a pretty uncompromising presentation of my way of seeing things, I suppose.
Alan Menken took me to his studio and we went through his trunks of songs and put together an album of stuff that people and stuff that people don't know. I'm very proud with the way it came out. I had no idea what it would be like to do an album and that process was grueling and tedious but it was very rewarding. I would do it again if I had the chance.
I came to The United States to see what would happen in 2000 after working for 20 years in Australia and asked my agent to look out for the nasty roles because I'd become famous for playing the nicest man in Australia. So I wanted to play bad guys. But I've been doing that now for 13 years so when I was offered the chance to do some comedy, I grabbed it.
Just getting to the point where we are now with 'To Dust' movie - where we've raised the money, put the crew together, signed all the actors up and are going on a certain date - is one of the biggest achievements of my life. It's nice, and producing definitely helps me to use the other side of my brain. I get brain fatigue from all of the creative drive.
I never made conscious choices. There were times in my life that I chose the first job that came along because I was broke. I think that there were maybe a handful of times that I had a choice. In recent years, Ive had more of a choice, and its been very nice to have that choice, but most of the time, you just hope that theres another job after this one.
Moyo, a Zambia-born economist, asserts that aid is not only ineffective-it's harmful. Her argument packs a strong punch because she was born and raised in Africa. Moyo believes aid money promotes the corruption of governments and the dependence of citizens, and advocates that an investment approach will do more to help reduce poverty than aid ever could.
Movies that I remember working on, or things that I remember working on, are things that took years of struggle and strife to get them off the ground or get them in front of the public. You don't have that kind of strife or whatever with a television show. It has an automatic platform. You go in, you do your job, and then it goes on air, and that's that.
Once upon a time' These are the most magical words our world has ever known and the gateway to the greatest stories ever told. They're an immediate calling to anyone who hears them-a calling into a world where everyone is welcome and anything can happen. Mice can become men, maids can become princesses, and they can teach valuable lessons in the process.
To be fair, on a good project, no matter whether it's improvised or scripted or meticulously prepared, or all up for grabs, it's always, always beyond the safety zone. Every project becomes interesting and exciting once you move beyond that routine. You always aspire to that. It's not that this improvisational mode is the only mode that facilitates that.
Working with Jean-Claude is a lot of fun. Because he's a great actor who also happens to be a fighter. That combination doesn't usually come together anymore. Usually, you have to fight the stunt double and then act against the actor. In his case, you are fighting with a real guy. It takes a minute to get used to that. Because it doesn't happen any more.
I worked as an assistant editor, actually, for a few years. That was right when I was just starting to get out at night and do a lot of stand-up, improv, and sketch work in New York. It really is invaluable. I think it pounded into me an awareness of what an editor wants and needs, in terms of clarity of a moment, where and when to start and stop a line.
Never underestimate a populist. We have come to a moment where language is very important. Saying the media is the number one enemy of society is a way to create confusion and set people against each other. It's like a virus. Democracy dies and is born every day. If you don't take an active role in what is going on, somebody can easily steal it from you.
Keep it real by being straight forward. Don't pull no punches on people. It's better to tell somebody than just lollygag around, letting them think they're living their life the right way. Because some people don't know what the hell they're doing, they don't know if they're living the right way or making the right decisions. Some people don't know that.
Ang [Lee] gave us a lot of books about cowboys who had been gay or stories about it and all that stuff. And I just talked to a lot of my friends - who [was] their first, particularly same-sex, first situation. That was fascinating to me - trying to learn what that was in a certain period of time. Certain age. The secrecy involved in it. All those things.
Well, Thanksgiving we'll all gather at my house for dinner and we usually do Christmas at Beau's house. My mom is still feisty and kicking. She's 92. I saw her last night and she published a book at 90. It's a wonderful book called "You Caught Me Kissing" and it's basically love-poems that she wrote for my dad. It's more than that, it's a wonderful book.
Yeah yeah, it's not so ethereal this time, it's a bit more rooted I feel like. Not that Joss 's wasn't, it was just a broader stroke that Joss was doing with all the Avengers. The Russo brothers are taking this Avengers 2.5, if you will, in keeping it still a Captain America movie. It's very sort of boots on the ground kinda thing, except for the flyers.
I experimented with drugs and I experimented with everything that little boys do - vandalism, throwing eggs at cars, breaking and entering schools and destroying a room. But I finally got to a point where I looked around and said, "This is not getting me anywhere. I'm stagnating with these guys." They were getting drunk and high every weekend. I got out.
Since we were renamed, and now it feels like 80 percent of the African-American population has the name Washington or Jefferson or some president or slave owner's name. And, I almost wonder is this, like, is this part of a way of taking back the principle of naming your - I might be going too far into this - but naming your kids something of your choice?
Rebellion, just to be clear, can mean holding onto some of your own integrity, of not playing into the idea of sensationalism. We all have our moments, and that's your guys' job - to take those moments and make them turgid, gaseous, make them big, and it's bigger than the person is. When you start believing your own press, that's when it gets really sad.
I'd heard rumors about Oliver Stone before we went to work on and I don't get it. To me, he's one of the most sensitive directors. He is just fascinated by why people act in the ways that they do. His movies are an excuse to explore that idea, and he wants to work with people who are as passionate about exploring it as he is. So we got along brilliantly.
I love watching all sorts of different types of movies, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily movies I want to be making. I'm not sitting around saying, "Man, I'd really love to direct a western." That's just not something I'm probably going to do. But, I'm just looking to work on things that both feel professionally exciting and personally relevant.
When I was in high school... I loved the outdoors, and I was introduced to wilderness camping. I was in a little prep school - a boarding school in southern California, in Ojai - and when I was in this school, they had a camping program, and there would be regular trips: hikes into the mountains, the Sierras, the Sespe River Valley, and different places.
It's never the practice to shoot the scenes in the proper order. Sometimes you shoot the final scenes of a film before you've even started the beginning. So you get good at it because you have to sort of just eliminate the memories of something you've done as an actor, which you haven't done as the character yet. But it sometimes is a bit of a mind-f**k.
A home life where it's so full of so many rigorous ideas about the way things should be, this word "should," I think is absolutely toxic to children. It hurts their personalities, it hurts their points of view in the world, it hurts their ability to be open and caring and curious. An element of allowance in a family, is, I think, really a positive thing.
I really saw Pat Brady, Kelsey Grammer's character's point of view that it's a business. It's show business. So, it was an incredible opportunity to work with really wonderful creatives and the script was fantastic. What was so interesting to me about the studio system was that a lot of the politics that were in play then are so really relevant to today.
What is it that we in the theatre give? Instead of images on canvas or in the form of statuary or music, we give our body, voice, feelings, will, imagination — we give a form of pulsating art to life itself; we give it to our characters and we give it to our audiences. Nothing, absolutely nothing remains for us save the pleasure of having given pleasure.
I was in Rome this time for about three or four months, and I feel like, by the time I left, every single person in Rome had seen me at least 10 times riding my bicycle. When I first got there, it seemed like people were happy to see me and would say hello. And by the end, they were kind of bored of seeing me. And it was like, "Ugh, there he goes again".
Some people say that you should go to all the parties, to the nightclubs, the Viper Room, and make contacts, and I look at them and say, 'You don't want to have contacts with those people.' Look at what happened to River Phoenix [who died in 1993 of a drug overdose outside the Viper Room]. If you get caught up in that, it ruins you. Hollywood is garbage.
A Pentagon official once said the people who would actually push the button probably have never seen a person die. He said the only hope -and it's a strange thought - is if they put the button to launch the nuclear war behind a man's heart. The President, then, with a rusty knife, would have to cut out the man's heart, kill the man, to get to the button.
Whatever you proclaim as your identity here in the material realm is also your drag. You are not your religion. You are not your skin color. You are not your gender, your politics, your career, or your marital status. You are none of the superficial things that this world deems important. The real you is the energy force that created the entire universe!
My metaphor for acting in movies - not on stage because it's completely different on stage - is to put colors on an easel for the director to paint his own painting with in the editing room, long after I've left. You buy me for red and black, so I better give you really great red and black, but if I can give you purple, pink, green and brown too, I will.
Reputations are maintained by the outside world, and they're created by it, too, by and large. And they serve as a hell of a device for privacy, because the more people look for something that's not there, the less chance they have of violating who you are. It's like going out there with a mask on, without having to exercise your upper body to put it on.
The British often shy away from any cinematic interpretation of real sex. They sometimes have what I call "subtle sex," which is really introspective and has soft music in the background. Either that or it's played for comedy. The British are kind of hung up about sex. They find it kind of titillating and they make jokes about it because they're nervous.