Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I remember getting in the elevator for my audition and there was a guy next to me who had a backpack full of props and wigs and things, and I went, 'Oh, my God, that guy is so prepared, I have nothing, I have no props.' And that was Andy Samberg. And Andy Samberg said he was looking at me going, 'Oh, that guy has no props. He doesn't need props.' And that was the first time we met, was in that elevator.
You know the theory of cell irritability? If you take an amoeba cell and poke it a thousand times, it will change and then re-form into its original shape. And then, the thousandth time you poke this amoeba, the cell will completely collapse and become nothing. That's kind of what it's like being famous. People say hi, how are you doing, and after the thousandth time, you just get angry; you really pop.
Like, she had a caterer, she had wardrobe people, she had two makeup artists... I mean, we have makeup and we have wardrobe, but Felicia [Day] was, like, on it. She had two cameras operating, sets, extras everywhere. It was unbelievable. I don't know what her budget was or is, but she had sponsors for her show, and we don't have a sponsor yet, so basically, the difference is, our moms make our costumes.
Baseball players need strength but also the ability to make fast-paced, explosive movements, so their training is all about strengthening the tendons around the bone and the joint so you don't tear the muscles from the bones. And so the muscles will have endurance and stability. And flexibility, which helps you throw the ball harder or have the snap to hit a ball. Or to take off quickly to steal a base.
You know I've had people come up and ask me to sign their guns. Sign my name on gun handles and holsters and stuff. I've done it once or twice for law enforcement officials, but when people do that -- and there have been quite a few of them lately -- I always tell them no. I don't want to do that. I don't want my name on that and I hope you use this gun, whatever its purpose is, I hope it's used wisely.
We're not allowed in the cutting room - and that's extraordinary. So, when a director is asking for certain nuances and colours and we feel that they're phoney, but we do it because the director asks for it, that's the one that they pick in the cutting room. And I contend that when you see a movie with bad acting, don't blame the actor... blame those guys in the cutting room because they like that take.
Fear can be one of the most destructive emotions. It is, of course, also very important, in that fear sometimes stops you from doing stupid things. But it can also stop you from doing creative or exciting or experimental things. It can cloud your judgement of others, and lead to all kinds of evil. The control and understanding of our personal fears is one of the most important undertakings of our lives.
Baz [Luhrmann] paid me one of the greatest compliments ever. I don't know him, really, but when I first met him I was congratulating him on ROMEO + JULIET - which I think is a wonderful adaptation - and he said, "Oh, well we couldn't have done it without your RICHARD III, which was an inspiration!" I've never quite checked up on the dates to see whether or if, in fact, we did our film before he did his.
The most telling one was recently on a plane. This guy very dressed up and formal - the watch, the shoes, the cufflinks, the whole nine yards - he came at me, and I thought I was going to get nailed. But he literally came up to me and just gave me a hug and said, "Thank you for introducing me to a subject that I didn't know anything about." In those moments it always clicks for me what we're doing here.
A mathematician either has a feeling for equations and an understanding and delight in it, not only in the purity of it, but in its beauty as well. I don't think that's something that you learn at school. I think you can get better in mathematics on a school level, but when you're talking about being a mathematician, I think that's definitely a gift of genes or whatever, you know? Whatever your pool is.
If I ever thought of directing again, I mean - I don't know, even the idea of directing a film is a strange one for me, because I feel kind of anti mathematics in a way in that sense. Anti - I don't like when things make sense, I prefer if they don't, so if I made a film, it wouldn't make any sense and no one would see it. So maybe I'll just make little films at home with my phone, never to be released.
I quite like the transitions of being an actor, because you get to explore these little pockets of life. So if you're playing a builder you get to know about building, if you're playing a scientist or a physician or something you get to know about physics. And similarly with this world I like exploring their culture, that very sort of upper middle class, addictive... that's part of the reason I love it.
Truth only seems old fashioned nowadays because we've grown so accustomed to deceit and manipulation. But Truth is eternal, so it can never be old or new. It never 'was' or 'will be.' It just 'is.' It always 'is.' Truth never grows old, and if you believe in it and try to live by it, you will always be, in some ways - the only ways that matter - the youngest, freshest, most energetic rebel on the block.
Look at, look, the Tea Partiers, who are controlling the Republican Party....Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What's, what does that, what underlines that? 'Screw the country. We're going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we're going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here... It is a racist thing.
The only way the devil really exists in my opinion... is in interactions with people who don't walk the walk and talk the talk; people who act one way, or talk one way and then do another. Those are the deals with the devil. I don't see the devil as somebody who is a horned, goateed guy with a fork in his hand that's there to continuously stab me and send my soul to hell. I don't see it that way at all.
Any kind of sequence when you have to express physical space and time can be difficult to story-tell because, if you're sitting there watching it like it's a play or something, your mind can track what's going on, or if you're watching an actual fight you can kind of track what's going on, but as soon as you have to start telling the story and tracking for the audience, it becomes much more complicated.
The first scene I shot on The Originals was the one with Phoebe, Charles (Michael Davis), and Andy Lees when we are plotting our plan and surveying the map and plotting our grand "break in." It was a relatively light scene which was nice because I was able to warm up a bit and get comfortable with being around the new crew. They were all very kind and helpful and I felt pretty at home after a few takes.
I have a really interesting political point of view, and its not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here, but you cant go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You cant. I wouldnt wish that experience on anyone else, but it was very, very, very educational for me and has informed my proclivities and politics every since.
What I've discovered from working with my father is that I'm still learning. I'm just a kid in this business. And I've seen from my father transitioning into being a director, that's where the power lies. And, like he says, it's feast or famine for an actor. If you're not creating your own material, then you're just fighting for whatever's out there. I definitely have the desire to go to the other side.
Ultimately, we are all products of the experiences we have and the decisions we make as children, and it remains a peculiar detail of human condition that something as precious as the future is entrusted to us when we possess so little foresight. Perhaps that's what makes hindsight so intriguing. When you're young the future is a blank canvas, but looking back you are always able to see the big picture.
I've discovered that I can't trust the ratings board at all, because they have - to my mind - a perverted point of view about what's appropriate for children. They think that if you see any part of a male or female anatomy, we have to protect children from it, which is not true, and they think almost any level of violence is okay for children, which is absolutely not true... They're really off the mark.
Get into something that's really personal that means something to you, where you have something to say and is something really individualized. I wish I was more aware of that when I started my career instead of doing a few things I was told would be good for me. And they weren't, because it left me empty, so I didn't do a good job anyways. I think that's what's key to what we do: It's got to be personal.
Organized religions in general, in my opinion, are dying forms. They were all very important when we didn't know why the sun moved, why weather changed, why hurricanes occurred, or volcanoes happened. Modern religion is the end trail of modern mythology. But there are people who interpret the Bible literally. Literally! I choose not to believe that's the way. And that's what makes America cool, you know?
The hardest work that actors have done, including myself, is on poorly written scripts. And when you first start out you do anything. I did a lot of crap. I did more crap than I can tell you. But you did it because you needed the money. You have to pay for your pictures and resumes, and classes and insurance and food like everybody else. In those days if it was crap you just didn't put it on your resume.
Life is a beautiful, magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish... The trouble is you won't fight. You've given in, continually dwelling on sickness and death. But there's something just as inevitable as death, and that's life. Life, life, life. Think of all the power that's in the universe, moving the earth, growing the trees. That's the same power within you if you only have courage and the will to use it.
I believe that everybody, whether you believe in the afterlife or the chance of a near-death experience and you come back and you see someone [on the other side] - whether that has happened or not, I don't know, but certainly everyone has thought about it at some point or another in time. It's a fantasy that if there is anything out there like that, it would be just terrific, but that remains to be seen.
Fall forward. Here's what I mean: Reggie Jackson struck out 2,600 times in his career - the most in the history of baseball. But you don't hear about the strikeouts. People remember the home runs. Fall forward. Thomas Edison conducted 1,000 failed experiments. Did you know that? I didn't either - because number 1,001 was the light bulb. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.
After my father had seen me in five or six things, he said, Son, your mother and I really enjoyed your recent film, and I must say that you're a lot like John Wayne. And I said, How so? And he said, Well, you're exactly the same in all your roles. Now, as a modern American actor, that's not what you want to hear. But for a guy who watched John Wayne movies and grew up in Iowa, it's a sterling compliment.
I love to ride horses. I've ridden since I was a kid so I got to do some riding, which was a lot of fun. But most of the stunts were left to the girls. It's the girls rescuing the guys mostly. So it was kind of really kick-ass, girl power. It was wonderful to watch. It was particularly sexy. They would come in and just slay in these choreographed pentagram of death fight scenes. It was pretty impressive.
I havent even been drinking, but, at all, but, you know, being a man, Ive got to say that weve got this guy in the White House who thinks he is a man, you know, who projects himself as a man because he has a certain masculinity, and he's a good old boy, and he used to drink, and he knows how to shoot a gun and how to drive a pickup truck, etcetera like that. Thats not the definition of a man, God Dammit!
You have formal rehearsal, a lot of things you don't have in movies - which is, you have to formally rehearse. You have to know your back story, discuss it, and almost everybody onstage has to know each other's [story], so that when it comes time to actually do it, you can throw it all away. That's the way I like to - and I didn't realize until very recently - that's the way I like to prepare for movies.
I didn't have a knee-jerk reaction like some people did to the language and the violence. My stepfather was a history teacher at Lincoln High School in Dallas. So, I was already familiar with the N-word and the brutality of slavery. What I was drawn to was the love story between Django and Broomhilda and how he defends and gets the girl in the end. I thought it was just an amazing and courageous project.
We see them [animals] as the Ice Age is ending and we know that actually in the long run, they're not going to make it. And there's something beautiful about that, beautifully sad. The way the characters are woven together in the film adds to the emotion because they need each other. The message is that it doesn't matter what species you are, you can still love each other and that is a fantastic message.
As an actor, you're constantly searching for that great character. Also, being a history buff and learning about people in our past and amazing things that they've done, I came across a book about Howard Hughes and he was set up as basically, the most multi-dimensional character I could ever come across. Often, people have tried to define him in biographies, but no one seems to be able to categorize him.
I knew very little about Rugby. But, I think it helps in terms of an American audience the game is enough like football in that it's a battle for field position and you score by running into what looks a lot like an end zone. I think in terms the nuance of the game, Americans won't get that stuff. I think in terms of the peanut butter and jelly version of what you need to know, I think it's pretty clear.
When I'm directing, I really try not to be tied to anything. I don't even have the sides in my hands. I have other things - ideas that I want to make sure I don't forget or that I want to accomplish. The endeavor isn't about propping up the screenplay; but about the communal effort of exploration from a lot of different departments - the actors, the DP, the costume designer - all these people and myself.
Directors like William Friedkin (Killer Joe), Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike) and Lee Daniels (The Paperboy) got in touch with me and wanted me to be part of their films. That was a whole new chapter for me. I didn’t chase any of those films and it made me think that I was right to take a chance, say no to the kind of thing I had grown tired of doing, and wait until something good came around. And it did.
The arts are not simply skills: their concern is the intellectual, ethical, and spiritual maturity of human life. And in a time when religious and political institutions are so busy engraving images of marketable gods and candidates that they lose their vision of human dignity, the arts have become the custodians of those values which most worthily difine humanity, which most sensitively define Divinity.
Coming from a background as unique as mine, the first challenge is being able to identify chaos as chaos. For the first half of my life, I interpreted chaos as normal. Today, I am aware that I have triggers: a default way of thinking that is often not relative to the immediate moment. Therefore, in the midst of chaos, I have learned to relinquish all my premature cognitive commitments and become present.
Whenever I hear an American say Aussies drive on the 'wrong side of the road,' I just lose it. You ever think about how those people grew up driving on the 'wrong side of the road,' watched a lot of people get hurt on the 'wrong side of the road,' die on the 'wrong side of the road,' while other people cheered from the 'right side of the road'? Australia has a thing called Highway Fights, so it's touchy.
It's about something that I'm extremely passionate about: exploring other cultures, how Americans are perceived by other cultures and how we perceive other cultures through our worldview. I travel whenever I get an opportunity to do so, and I think this country is ready for a show on television that is bilingual and really puts front and center another culture, both as the protagonist and the antagonist.
I feel lousy about the pain that I've caused my wife and kids. I feel guilty and conscience-stricken, and all of those things you think sentimental, but which my generation calls simple human decency. And I miss my home, because I'm beginning to get scared shitless, because all of a sudden it's closer to the end than the beginning, and death is suddenly a perceptible thing to me, with definable features.
Easterly, a celebrated economist, presents one side in what has become an ongoing debate with fellow star-economist Jeffrey Sachs about the role of international aid in global poverty. Easterly argues that existing aid strategies have not and will not reduce poverty, because they don't seriously take into account feedback from those who need the aid and because they perpetuate western colonial tendencies.
I've been quoting the book [on Peter Sutcliffe] constantly in rehearsals. Some members of the cast have stated their disapproval that it should even have been written. Some of the women have expressed more - disgust and anger. What are they saying? They'd prefer not to know, not to understand? They'd prefer certain areas of life to be censored? Isn't that partly what breeds the Sutcliffes and the Nilsens?
I was always really shy. That's why being in front of cameras like this is uncomfortable. I found that when I was a kid, I would hide behind playing pretend. That's when I would come out of my shell. I would dress up as an old man or something and go out onto the street with my mom. I would come out of my shell that way. So I ended up stumbling into acting. It was the one thing that I found a passion for.
In adolescence, it's 'How do I fit in?' In your 20s, 'What do I want to do?' Your 30s, 'Is this what I'm meant to do?' I think the trick is living the questions. Not worrying so much about what's ahead but rather sitting in the gray area; being okay with where you are. If you can find the parity between 'Where am I going?' and 'What's my purpose?' you've got two pretty solid pillars for your coffee table.
Congratulations to all the members of the wonderful Treorchy Male Choir past and present. In moments of grief or joy, the sound of the Choir can move and uplift and restore spirits like no other sound. Masters of their craft, each and every singer plays a vital role in helping maintain such a fantastic musical tradition. Long may the Choir prosper and continue to the delight of audiences around the world.
I don't want to be so analytical of my own life, because if I start to be analytical of my own life, maybe I'll choose not to believe anything that's going on. But, the fact of the matter is, I've experienced both sides of it now. Sides where you have a great time with people on set, and then you do just step away. And it's not malicious. It's just that people go back and live their lives and do whatever.
There's something about TV shows and the format that becomes a bit more personal. People watch two, three in a row before they get out of bed on their laptop or when they get home from going out and before they go to sleep. People make shows part of their daily routine, and that makes them take ownership of it. If you're so arrogant as to call yourself an artist, you can't ask for anything more than that.
In the end, the game is the same. Football is still football. Now, they may play with different formations, they may have a different idea of training, but the game doesn't alter. I don't mind how any performer - indeed, why should I? How arrogant of me if I did? - manages to get to what they have to get to. It doesn't matter how you get there, as long as it isn't going to destroy other people on the way.