Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I was doing a play in New York, which we had done in New Haven, Connecticut. It was an American premiere of a play called The Changing Room written by a wonderful man named David Story. It was about a rugby team in the North of England. It got just screaming rave reviews. At that time, virtually every major critic went up to the Long Wharf Theater to see a new play like that.
More times than not, my pain stems from an area in which I've been least authentic. The second I identify the source - the area of my inauthenticity - I begin to feel better. This allows me to take complete responsibility for my emotional discomfort, and the awareness enables me to move beyond the blockage. I become energetically unstuck, allowing the pain to pass through me.
It's fun right now, and I love it right now, but I don't know where I'm going to be tomorrow, 'cause I'm not psychic. But I know that over the last 10 years, acting has been the only joy, this has been - it's strange to say, 'cause the thinking is off. But this is more important than my hobbies, my family, my love, my friends. It's the most important thing in the world to me.
Steven's Spielberg is one of the most visually talented and character-oriented directors I've ever worked with. And I learn from him every time I watch one of his movies. Good or bad - and he has made some awful movies - they're never uninteresting. He's made four or five of the greatest movies of all time. Perfect movies, like E.T. or Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan.
I think it's just as viable a way of telling a story as anything else but for right now we like playing around with the new ways to do 3-D because I think it's only going to get better. I think that eventually we'll come home, we'll sit in our living room and there will be a little hologram that'll pop up and you'll watch these 3-D movies but you'll be able to walk around it.
Success comes from having a fulfilling experience and being inside the moment of that experience. Success does not come in retrospect or as a recollection or even as an evaluation from others. lt's not something that you can physically hold onto or repeat at will. Only when you acknowledge the special moments can you truly feel the effects of your most wonderful achievements.
In fact, now for whatever reason, if we're recording in the same room, I get a little distracted because I'm watching the actor instead of listening to the actor. The way we do it now, they're on the phone, and we're sitting here with scripts in front of us taking notes seriously and marking takes and doing some adlibs. I can really focus on the words and not the surroundings.
I've always loved teaching acting. I think it helps me to kind of get back to basics. It's like a refresher course for me as well, so in a sense, I'm hopefully learning as much as my students are - or at least discovering or re-discovering as much as they are. I find that when I teach, I'm reminded of my own sort of failings. I'm reminded of where I sometimes keep going wrong.
Both creatively and organizationally, being medicated has helped me immensely. My career did not start until I was medicated. And then I can track - the years I was off medication, things dipped. And the years I went back on medication is when things started to get good for me again career wise. It is 100 percent in my case undeniable that being medicated helped my creativity.
The tremendous Jeremy Latcham from Marvel showed up with this one-of-a-kind animated encyclopedia about S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Avengers. Coulson wasn't a part of the comic books, which is a singular thing about him that I thought would get me killed off very quickly, but luckily, it didn't. It just became a thing that I fit into, and they kept finding new and better uses for me.
A man is still likely to earn more money than a woman, even one doing the same job. You have a far better chance of entering political office or becoming a company director... Women are responsible for two thirds of the work done worldwide, yet earn only 10% of the total income and own 1% of the property... So, are we equals? Until the answer is yes, we must never stop asking.
In this case, I don't know why they [Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg] thought I would be a good lavash wrap or I would do a good Middle Eastern accent. They just assumed I would. They called one day, and they're like, "They're doing this read-through for Sausage Party, and you're going to play a lavash wrap in it." After I looked up what a lavash wrap was, I was like, "Oh, cool."
I think I made some mistakes, in different areas, but it's great to be working in a show again now, many years down the track. I have worked in many other different shows in Australia and I've been able to learn from my mistakes. I'm lucky that I made those mistakes early on in Australia, and I definitely won't make them again in the States, but you've got to learn that stuff.
I jump out of the boat [in The Lost World], and I'm trying to swim to the kid, and my boots fill with water, and I start to drown, and the director has no idea why I'm flailing around. He's, "Come on, come on!" And I managed to rescue myself. I'm wet and sitting on the banks of the river, and John walks over to me and says, "Are you all right, dear boy?" "Yeah, I'm all right."
How to make a scary movie human, take a movie like Sinister. How can I make that guy so real so that the scary elements of it are more scary and it functions as a genre movie - as the way it's supposed to, you want to hear a ghost story at midnight, that's a good one - but how do you fill it up with humanity inside, in staying true to the genre? You know? Does that make sense?
I was always around people who were in the business from the time I was an absolute baby. I grew up in New York City, and my parents, my sister, and I had a house on Fire Island, and they were part of a set of people that were all close and friendly, most of whom were involved in show business in one regard or another. So it was always familiar to me, and I kind of enjoyed it.
Like any classic you hope to get rid of all the varnish that's built up over the centuries where people expect it to be in a certain way. It's a mighty play. It's about a very old king who also happens to be a very old father, so you've got the state and the domestic levels in there together. It's a story in extremis. Everyone knows the end, there's only two people left alive.
There is always going to something very grounded about the characters I play, because of my Chicago roots, because the city is so grounded. Even my wife pointed it out when we were in the city, she said that even the architecture is grounded in Chicago, it's so solid. Because it has to deal with winters. There is something about Chicago that keeps people centered and grounded.
Seeing Neil Entwistle accused of this awful crime gives us little comfort and, in fact, only adds to our enormous pain and suffering. To think that someone we loved, trusted and opened our home to could do this to our daughter and granddaughter is beyond belief. The betrayals to the family, to Neil's family, to our family (and) to our friends here and in the UK are unbearable.
I’m very worried about the depiction of women on the screen. It’s gotten worse than ever and it’s related to their being either high- or low-class concubines, and the only question is when or where they will go to bed, with whom, and how many. There’s nothing to do with the dreams of women, or of woman as the dream, nothing to do with the quirky part of her, the wonder of her.
I've been doing photography in one form or another for, oh golly, over seventy years. I don't carry cameras. I used to. For many years I carried cameras wherever I went. Photograph whatever I saw that was of interest. In the last years, I've only used cameras to explore thematic ideas which presented themselves first. And then bring out the cameras to try to explore that idea.
I absolutely loved it, and I loved the way the character of D'Artagnan had been portrayed. I was just well up for it. So, I went in and met (director) Toby [Haynes], and as soon as I got into that room, to see how excited everybody was to get this underway and onto the set, it just drew me to it, even more. It was an instant attraction, so I was delighted when I got the offer.
With voice acting, it liberates you to play characters you'd never do in a million years because you're physically not right. You can show up looking like hell, you don't have to memorize your lines because you can read them right off the page, and you get to play the most fun parts. You come in and you kick everyone's ass and you get your own ass kicked, and then you go home.
I remember on Thanksgiving all the kids wanted the drumstick. There were four of us then. Well, today you can go into the supermarket and get 12 drumsticks. Years ago you couldn't do that. So I was sucking on the neck for two years. My mother told me it was the leg, and I believed it. I went to my father and said, Why is my leg always cockeyed? He said, The bird has arthritis.
We all compromise ourselves, from time to time, because maybe it will lead to more opportunity...A ll of that’s cool, but we forget and we get caught up. If you want that nurturing, caring, empathetic, compassionate heart to keep on ticking and be around, and you want it to be strong, then don’t neglect #1. One way to feed it is just being truthful and listening to your heart.
I don't normally get very star struck. However, I was just at a table read for a movie. It was an animated movie where they have all the actors come in and sit around a big table and read the whole script out loud so you can see what's working, what's not working. And this is an animated movie that Paul McCartney is doing and he's producing it. So I got to meet Paul McCartney.
When I was in therapy about two years ago, one day I noticed that I hadn't had any children. And I like children at a distance. I wondered if I'd like them up close. I wondered why I didn't have any. I wondered if it was a mistake, or if I'd done it on purpose, or what. And I noticed my therapist didn't have any children either. He had pictures of his cats on the wall. Framed.
The core of Animal House was about prejudice, about equality, and about inclusion/exclusion. It was about a group of people who were together and anything went. Anybody who wanted in could get it in. Then there was that other group that nobody could get in, unless they were white, and just alike. It was very representative of the culture in the '60s, '50s, and '40s in America.
All modesty aside, I think I'm good at reading scripts. The way I read a script is as fast as I can, all in one sitting, and I don't read many of the stage directions. I only read enough stage directions to let me know where I am, because they're always so verbose and mostly horseshit. So I only read the dialogue, which allows me to see the movie in my mind's eye in real time.
When you're doing a comedy and you want to somehow satirise people who are taking themselves seriously, I think the most serious genre is the thing you're going to get the most out of. If you're trying to satirise a comedy, it's hard to do that - it doesn't really work as well. But I love the war movie genre and I'm a fan of all those movies that are part of what this movie is.
I was this Swedish kid who came over here to study engineering, but I got into movies, and suddenly I'm in this 'Rocky' picture with Sylvester Stallone. And then the movie comes out, and it's a big hit, and I'm famous. Like, world famous. I wasn't thinking of ruling Hollywood; I was thinking of just trying to make it to the next day, trying to figure out what the hell happened.
So, you just have to keep pushing yourself with regards to the choices you make, to make sure they're very different from one another, I suppose. I don't know. I don't have any answer for any of that. I can't help but just say yes to lots of work that comes my way because I'm so relieved and so desperately excited and pleased that anyone could possibly offer me any work anyway.
There's a version of Tony [from "I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore"] that I think could be heightened. Trying to find the balance. A lot of that comes from "Who is he?" I think we've all kind of met that dude. The comic book enthusiast, or someone who gets too excited about things, but his own enthusiasm tends to alienate him. I relate to it because I've seen that guy.
Brian is an archetypal character, a bit like Don Juan, which is how I play him. He's a blast to play. He believes unapologetically in his freedom. He holds nothing back. Something I'm learning is, you can't hate the character you play. If I think my character is an asshole, that's all that will come across. He is drawn in an extreme way, but that doesn't mean he's not a person.
In books, day breaks, and night falls. In life, night rises from the ground. The day hangs on for as long as it can, bright and eager, absolutely and positively the last guest to leave the party, while the ground darkens, oozing night around your ankles, swallowing for ever that dropped contact lens, making you miss that low catch in the gully on the last ball of the last over.
Honestly, I'm one of the ones who is least like my character, just because I like to make people laugh and have a good time-and be kind of fun and silly. Jake is very composed, has his guard up, and is a bit damaged. But Cory Monteith is pretty much like Finn. I think they both kind of have that goofy sense of humor. Cory is so hilarious in his everyday life, just like Finn is.
I like working on one - camera. This is not false modesty, but I don't think I'm very good at three - camera. And it's not that I'm nervous, but I just sort of feel like my collar is too small, or my clothes don't fit. I don't understand what that is. And I don't understand the format: There's an audience in front of you that you're playing to, but there are also these cameras.
The purpose of my life had always been to free people from concern, like my dad... How will you serve the world? What do they need that your talent can provide? That’s all you have to figure out... The effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is. Everything you gain in life will rot and fall apart, and all that will be left of you is what was in your heart.
I always get a headache the first time I watch a movie I'm in. Because you're staring at the screen so hard, your brain is doing all this work trying to put things in context of what the day-to-day experience of making it was. And the timeline that's in your head of when it was made, and on what day, how you felt. And then you're also trying to grasp what it's been edited into.
Sometimes, with the scale of a film, it's like when I walked on the sets of "The Matrix," especially in "Reloaded," there was the city square, or in "Revolutions" with some of the machine world, you're like, "Wow, this is a big playground," which is fun to watch. But the acting experience and the collaborating and creating the world, working on the piece, they're the same joys.
I was accepted to Colorado State University in Fort Collins, which is a terrific Aggie school, and they had a great forestry program. But when I saw the syllabus and realized what I was going to actually have to be studying, there was a lot of science! If you want a degree in forestry, it's basically a science degree. And I just thought, "No, no, no, wait a second. Never mind!"
Every director is different and they all have different styles. I've worked with directors who were very specific and they gave a lot of direction. The one thing about Michael [Haneke]that I think is interesting is that he really has a reason for everything he's asking you. If you challenge it, he is open for discussion but he has a clear idea of what he wants with reasons why.
There were a million different things I could have chosen or wanted to do, but the path of an artist was the one that pulled me the most. I did local theater and plays in school. I think there was a sense of entertaining - being on the stage, making people laugh, making people cry - that I was drawn to. It was also one of those things like, "I can do this for a very long time."
All right, you great git, you've asked for it. I'll cover the world in Tastee-Freez and Wimpy Burgers. I'll fill it with concrete runways, motorways, aircraft, television, automobiles, advertising, plastic flowers, frozen food and supersonic bangs. I'll make it so noisy and disgusting that even you'll be ashamed of yourself! No wonder you've so few friends; you're unbelievable!
You can get the oldest drum machine out and whack out four sounds like a kick, snare, and two types of high-hat, and try and come up with the freshest thing on the spot. The gear can guide you - you can choose one bit of gear and it's obviously got its restrictions and its limitations, but at the same time, you've got to exploit what it's capable of and what it's best used for.
We like to keep the show small. Honestly, where we moved the show to the UCB theater, we moved it to a smaller space. Even though the show has technically gotten more popular. And that is, only because we like intimacy and the ability to experiment more. We don't want to be like, "We can get 250 people in a week. So let's do that. But we have to be careful about who we book..."
It's tough because sometimes you'll just be on the web and things pop up or you get emailed something from a friend. It is definitely impossible to avoid stuff about me sometimes, but it's pretty important to try. It's very rare that things are true about yourself that are on the Internet. It's just sad sometimes. So you definitely try and stay away from it as much as possible.
A good part of why I never went back to England was part of that, I didn't want to be in those sort of flowery films. But I think it's a nice change of pace-I don't know how long it'll go for. There will always be the Merchant-Ivory/Kenneth Branagh movies, but there's something else now-really, it's always been there but the Americans getting to see it makes all the difference.
I do suppose what any political satire, what any political joke can count as a gaffe or a possible career-ending move. It changes what counts. I don’t know, I do feel like day to day even though Trump is so terrible and ridiculous, day to day we still laugh at Jason Chaffetz and we still laugh at Ted Cruz and we still laugh at those guys, at just how bad they are at their jobs.
Daniel Day-Lewis is particularly a sort of beacon I've been following for some time. For God's sake, I'm not even in his league but he inspires me because he's not interested in playing himself; he's only interested in playing other people and the whole thing is like an adventure for him, it seems to me. It's some kind of spiritual exploration, which is an amazing, noble thing.