Quote collection
197 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I haven't purposefully set out to play heroes. I'm interested in playing the character who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. But he's really either just saving himself or acting in the service of something that's important to him."
"The job's always the same. It involves helping to tell the story and creating an alloy between character and story that serves the film."
"Sometimes I try to improve the language, the lines, or the delivery, but I don't ad-lib because I think that makes it really hard for everybody else involved."
"Acting was a way out at first. A way out of not knowing what to do, a way of focusing ambitions. And the ambition wasn't for fame. The ambition was to do an interesting job."
"I get an opportunity to communicate with the audience about the movie that I've made. I get the chance to bring attention to the film that I've made. I care a lot about the movies that I make. I want them to reach an audience, and I want them to be successful. I promote nearly everything that I do, unless I've got some bad taste in my mouth."
"I think American films right now are suffering from an excess of scale. Lots of movies we're seeing now are more akin to video games than stories about human life and relationships. Twelve- to 20-year-olds are maybe the largest economic force in the US movie business. I'm not a very nostalgic person - but I enjoy a good story."
"The only ambition I ever had going into and committing to wanting to be an actor was to live my life."
"Chadwick Boseman work as an actor, I think, is truly remarkable, and I had a great time working with him."
"I could take Sean Connery in a fight... I could definitely take him."
"I think retirement's for old people. I'm still in the business, thank you. I have a young child of nine years old, and I want to live as long as I can to see him grow up. I'm enjoying my life and I want to stick around for as long as I can."
"What I think is important for a young person is to figure out how to be useful and not be so concentrated on themselves, but to see what they can do to make the overall collaboration with all the other people involved in a movie work better."
"I don't do stunts - I do running, jumping and falling down. After 25 years I know exactly what I'm doing."
"Irish as a person but I feel Jewish as an actor."
"I accrued anger from people's low opinion of me and my work, and for the work I might be capable of."
"Never claim credit for anything. 'Cause you can't righteously do that. There's luck and grace and accident."
"[On being an actor] .nothing more than a worker in a service occupation . It's like being a waiter or a gas station attendant, but I'm waiting on 6 million people in a week if I'm lucky."
"I was desperately unhappy with it [Blade Runner]. I was compelled by contract to record five or six different versions of the narration, each of which was found wanting on a storytelling basis. The final version was something that I was completely unhappy with. The movie obviously has a very strong following, but it could have been more than a cult picture."
"I am not the first man who wanted to make changes in his life at 60 and I won't be the last. It is just that others can do it with anonymity."
"I think that the best movies are made, not from a point of view that depends on your personal history, whether it's the color of your skin or the politics that you had or the place that you come from, but from a point of view of an understanding of human nature, an understanding of history, and an understanding of what motivates people."
"Everything I do, I'm sort of half in, half out."