Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
One time in the late '50s, when Peter Finch, Laurence Harvey, and I were all offered the same movie role - the assumption being that we weren't friends - we marched up to producer Dino De Laurentiis's door and declared in unison, 'We don't think we're suitable for the part.'
I'm a very serious guy. I try to counter that predisposition of being a serious person with all this tomfoolery that I love to do so much. I really enjoy it; that's why I do it. I don't like the way I am... perhaps my natural default is to be that way, and I don't like that.
I just have to attend someone's birthday party or go out for dinner with someone else for us to be in a relationship. That's not going to stop me from socialising, but tell me, which girl would want to be with a guy who goes to bed early and gives more importance to the gym?
We start to realize that there are anodynes in life that help us through the day. I don't care if it's a walk in the park, a look out the window, a good bubble bath - whatever. Even a meal you like, or a friend you want to call. That helps us solve all this stuff in our head.
The physical stamina [in Revolution]. I was just shocked by it. I didn't think I had it in me ever, and I wasn't terribly young when I did it. I was in my early forties. That was the first thing I was struck by, not by the acting, not by anything else, but by the physicality.
My son had his eighth birthday recently and we had a chance to borrow the film and show it to all of his friends that was at his birthday party and they loved it. I was a little nervous. I said they might not even like it, and say his daddy's movie is wack, but they loved it.
Once, Naseeruddin Shah told me that the wafer shop was the best acting school that I could have attended. And I completely agree. I observed every customer very minutely and picked up some quirk or the other. Later, I used those experiences while playing different characters.
Unlike most actors, I did not have a horrible childhood. Most actors have had miserable childhoods and they go into acting to hide from their real life. I had no problem playing in the woods all day. People just sort of left me alone. I think I'm gonna go back to those woods.
When in college, I would hardly attend classes. In fact, we would go to other colleges and hang out there. Every six months, my friends and I would hit the roads and go to Goa. We weren't rich kids, and our trips were on shoestring budgets. But, we hardly cut down on the fun.
I'm still watching all those old-timers really going along, and I'm enjoying it so much, not just looking at the pictures, but looking at the acting. Paul Muni. Beautiful character. Edward G. Robinson. Jimmy Cagney. All those old boys. You don't find those characters anymore.
While I put forth the suntan and the teeth and the cavalier attitude, I've survived under the worst of eras and times, and I've always had a good time doing it, because I never really took myself seriously, nor did I take life seriously because it is already terribly serious.
I think my initial view of it is that 'The Room' has succeeded in being the best bad movie because it's the most earnest. I feel like it's a film that comes from the heart, and somebody's really trying to send a message about their life and their view on the human experience.
It's a privilege to be able to be involved with people as talented as the people I've had the luck to work with, and it's just been a great experience for me, and I'm glad that so many of the films I've had the luck to do were films that could be enjoyed by families together.
My parents loved each other. I was raised in a house of total love and respect. My dad worked very hard and my mother was incredibly devoted to him. I can unequivocally, without any peradventure of doubt, tell you that I was raised with the kind of love that we only dream of.
I always have a rule that acting is acting and truth is truth and you just go out there and you do it. But what happens in each medium is that you have other responsibilities. The acting remains the same, but each medium dictates assuming other halves to make the acting work.
What I've learned in my career as an actor is that you're only as good as your collaborators. The process is many things, but it is wholly collaborative, particularly with something like 'Westworld,' which is a 10-episode-per-season gig, and we're just now on the 7th episode.
When actors get pigeonholed, that's their own doing to a large degree. Because if you do something that people like, obviously they're going to ask you to do it again. It's up to you to say no. If you're that insecure about working, you'll probably do what you're known to do.
When I came on 'The West Wing,' I jumped onto something that was already a steaming locomotive of a hit. It was very exciting for me because I knew, the moment I got the 'West Wing' job, 'Well, hey, so now I'm on a hit show because it already is established and very popular.'
When I talk to younger actors, and young people in general, who are holding off having children because they think they cannot fit them into their busy lives, I now know, and am able to say to them, 'You've just got to get on with it; there is never going to be a right time.'
I just really enjoyed all that kind of responsibility, I loved the fact that many people cared. I was doing 4 hours of boxing, 2 hours of weights, an hours of accent and dialect training, I just enjoyed having to do all that for this character [ Vinnie Paz in Bleed for This].
We do have a problem in this country. You can either make a movie and ignore that, or you can acknowledge it and say, this is the water that we're living in. You know this - the movie lives in this - it's centered around this particular problem, and I chose to acknowledge it.
'ER' was an all-consuming universe, but I don't have a single regret. It gave me some of the greatest friendships I have and afforded me one of the rarest commodities in an actor's life, which is the financial security to pick and choose jobs for factors besides the paycheck.
I shared a dressing room with Pete Postlethwaite for 18 months, and he became a good friend. His discipline had an impact on me. You could have a laugh with him, but he was always on the ball when it came to work and very professional. Hopefully some of that rubbed off on me.
There's the movie you write, there's the movie you shoot and the movie you edit, and often, you find that you're getting the same information out of a scene that you already have and a scene that's actually more powerful, so you have to make the tough decision to take it out.
I believe in life. I know that life comes in at your heart and it doesn't matter if you're an actor, a filmmaker or a gentleman on the street, it comes at you. What Scientology gives me is the tools to deal with that, to better enjoy my life and to be able to contribute more.
My parents broke up when I was six. Before, I was a very active, naughty child, but after my father left me, I stopped talking. I became very good at hiding my emotions. I felt so ashamed of telling others that I didn't have a father, because that was not common in the 1960s.
I didn't care about that because I'm not a diplomatic person to begin with. I just went along with things and did what I wanted to do because I knew they had to shoot their 12 pages a day. And when they realized that I didn't alter the text they really didn't mind what I did.
My dad was working abroad, in Iraq, and he was a doctor. We used to go and visit him, in Baghdad, off and on. For the first ten years of my life, we used to go backwards and forwards to Baghdad, so that was quite amazing. I spent a lot of time traveling around the Middle East.
There are parts of New Zealand that I absolutely fell in love with that I will miss going back to, but I kind of think that is the part that can continue and will continue on. I don't imagine I'll stop going back to New Zealand, because I feel part of the fabric there, really.
In terms of the black female audience, usually if you're true to that character but more so in your body of work if you've proven that you love your sisters and you proven you will come back home like in 42.4% they'll give you a pass when you jump ship. I hear it all the time.
It was really tough as a kid going to a Braves game. It was a guaranteed loss. You're looking at 100 losses a year. I was a huge baseball fan, played it for quite a while. But when '91 happened, with Smoltz and Glavine, it turned around, and I will say it made it pretty sweet.
My belief is that if I can achieve that level of entertainment by making the audience happy or sad or angry, then I have succeeded as an actor and have done my job. The profits and the fame as an actor will eventually surface, but first and foremost comes the work as an actor.
If someone pulls me down, I pull them down, as I don't feel I should live my life in the way other people want me to. If they have a problem with my films, I can rip off their films, be it comedy or their family dramas, which are low on content and have over-theatrical acting.
Acting is not about competing. Acting is about cooperating. Acting is about collaboration. It's about your utility, your usefulness, your capacity to add to the work that has already been done and will be done. You're just part of a team. I never feel competitive about acting.
If you have a debt issue or credit card issue, start dealing with it. If you have a tax issue, don't just say, 'I'm not going to file.' There are ways to deal with these things, but you must communicate with your creditors, whether it's a credit card company or tax department.
The word 'courage,' one of my favorite words, the root or the etymology of that word is 'cour,' which means heart. I think true courage is actually following your heart and not getting or succumbing to what other people's definition of what your life should be. Live your life.
Well, I look at it like this: When you go to a restaurant, the less you know about what happens in the kitchen, the more you enjoy your meal. If the soup tastes good, everything's cool, and you don't necessarily want to know what's in it. The same thing holds true with movies.
My first-ever job was when I was 14 or 15 in Washington, D.C., a job that I got through Marion Barry's summer-youth-employment program. It was working in the locker room of a public swimming pool, deep inside Anacostia in Southeast D.C., about five to 10 minutes from my house.
I struggled to kick the habit - I would make a decision to give up smoking, but it was hard. I couldn't resist the urge to steal a smoke. It was at that time that I was gifted Allen Carr's book 'The Easy Way to Stop Smoking.' After I read that book, I didn't touch a fag again.
Over the years, with all the experience, I've become more mature about the subjects I pick. I have a better understanding of what works at the box office. Once the story is finalised, I surrender to the director and follow him. After that, my performances speak for themselves.
Breaking my neck was the best thing that ever happened to me. I have an Olympic medal. I've been to so many countries I would never have been, met so many people I would never have met. I've done more in the chair, ... than a whole hell of a lot of people who aren't in chairs.
There were times when I was broke, when I was down in Florida and I had to go to cocktail parties for 500 bucks - to see the guy that used to be in pictures. I'm not ashamed of that. I've never done anything that I was ashamed of. I've done a lot of things I didn't mean to do.
I remember somebody asking me in an interview years ago if I would be interested in playing Jason Bourne. I laughed: I didn't think anybody would want to see me run around with a machine gun. It always stayed in the back of my head that I had reacted like that. It bothered me.
My ambition was always to bag a lead role in a film, and hence, I refrained from doing any ads, TV serials, music videos, as I felt that a fresh face always works much better. It was a gamble, and I took that gamble telling myself that I will give it my all to bag a lead role.
I was made fun of in the Midwest - I was the only Asian in my graduating class of 200. Fortunately, I found my niche, and it was fine. But I wanted to be so white, you wouldn't believe it. I was like, 'I want to be white; I don't want to be this anymore.' But now I embrace it.
I'm thinking of how unexpected and yet oddly preordained life can be. Events are upon you in an instant, unforseen and without warning, and often times marked with disappointment and tragedy, but equally often leading to a better understanding of the bittersweet truth of life.
I went home one afternoon to pick up a script without bothering to change, and a half an hour later the Beverly Hills Police were at my door because a neighbor had reported a suspicious stranger lurking around Ross Martin's house. I had to peel off my beard to prove who I was.
When I'd read the script [The Man], [ Eugene Levy] that's who I'd seen in my mind. When I ran into him, I said to him, 'I read the script. You'd be great.' He had no idea what I was talking about. Then, we saw each other again in London. He'd read it and was enthused about it.
It was fun to be in a scene again with [my wife LaTanya Richardson]. We used to do plays together all the time. We hadn't really worked together since Losing Isaiah [1995]. That was kind of early on in both of our cinematic careers. Things have changed a little bit since then.
I've gotten very good at scheduling my life, scheduling the scene and preparing myself for knowing, saving the energy, consuming the energy, knowing when to go for it and having the available reserves to be able to do that. You have to think about that, because it's endurance.