Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I come to Comic-Con in San Diego because this is where those fans are - those to whom I owe the longevity of my career.
When you go to the Sistine Chapel with Sophia Loren, it can be quite some time before your thoughts turn to the ceiling.
If you paint a picture and I paint a picture, we each want to do it our own way. And we'll stand or fall on whatever we did.
Be very careful about your care. Don't use it for sexual high jinks. It can get ugly - trust me. Also be careful when flushing.
I don't paint butter dishes, doilies, or hummingbirds in my garden. It's more raw, I suppose. But it always creates a reaction.
I was victimized by the old Hollywood typecasting thing. I had to really fight to get out of it, so I was uncomfortable with it.
Favorite Bat-gadget was probably the Batboat, because it was fun to get out on the ocean and run that thing around at high speed.
When I was a kid, I read comics. But when I saw how funny it was, and how wonderfully absurd, I said, "You know, I gotta do this."
You have no idea the people I meet when I do these Comic-Cons. When I go sign autographs and say hello to people, I see everything!
I just go my own way. If my agent calls and presents me with something, and I find it refreshing or illuminating, yeah, I'll do it.
Typecasting is really rampant in Hollywood, and because I played a costumed character and did it successfully, it was a real stigma.
I've been able to reinvent myself and to keep an audience going at whatever age. This is terrific. I mean, how many actors get that chance?
I grew up on a ranch in Walla Walla, Washington. Except for one lawyer, I don't remember anyone in my family being anything else but ranchers.
One of the first things I look for in a woman I meet is a sense of humor, a sort of light acceptance of the world and the people who live in it.
My grandfather and my father had wheat ranches, so we had quite a few trucks around and a lot of mules. Talk about horsepower - we had mule power.
In a very real sense, I represent pop culture in an iconic way. It's been very good to me, so anything I can do to help the fans to tumble along - it's good.
I think it's an actor's job, if you can, to keep working and to keep using that muscle. First of all, you've got to pay the bills, but it also helps you develop.
You've got a guy in a cape and tights running around fighting crime 24-7; this is not normal. But it worked because the kids loved it and the adults laughed with it.
I get called 'Mayor West' a lot in airports. I've been very fortunate to have a fan base that keeps growing, and the work gets such a warm response and humor from people.
I'm very lucky. I do voiceovers, 'Family Guy,' on and on, and quite frankly, I'm one of the luckiest actors in the world. I was able to create a character who became iconic.
Batman had a certain speech pattern that I established because he was always Sherlock Holmes-ian. He was Basil Rathbone. In other words, he was always musing about something.
The wonderful thing with some of the things I've done - most of them, really - is to be trusted. To be able to do your thing, to work on it, hone it into my gem of creativity!
It's a wonderful thing to be able to make fun of yourself and to do it in a way that sort of preserves your dignity but, at the same time, lets you play the theater of the absurd.
Over the years, I've learned that if you can just hang in there and, regardless of what's presented to you, take it as a challenge and try to bring in something fresh, then it works.
My paintings capture the humor, zaniness, and depth of the Batman villains as well as the Freudian motivations of Batman as an all-too-human, venerable, and funny vigilante superhero.
I've hung on for a long time in this business and had some success, and I think it's keeping an open mind and being curious and having a sense of humor about oneself that's important.
Playing Batman is an actor's challenge. First, it's different; then, you have to reach a multi-level audience. The kids take it straight, but for adults, we have to project it further.
I think our Batman had to be fun, light-hearted, funny, tongue-in-cheek... and I think that made kind of an homage to those earlier comic books, where Batman always had a quip or something.
Crummy pictures, live appearances, circuses, avant garde theater, dinner theater. I've done it all. I've been shot out of cannons. I know what the people want. I'm out there with the people.
When I was getting started, I was so busy just fighting my way through, and I was under contract at Warner Brothers. I did 40 hours of color television with the late Robert Taylor as a young cop.
You can't play Batman in a serious, square-jawed, straight-ahead way without giving the audience the sense that there's something behind that mask waiting to get out, that he's a little crazed; he's strange.
I love to do voiceover because, for me, if you know what you're doing, it's simple. No makeup, no costuming, none of the baloney. None of the egos - you don't have to deal with all that crap. I love voiceovers.
Not to be able to move around or do things without thinking - that's tough. I may end up that way, but if I do, I hope to hell my intellect will take over, and I'll find some kind of joy and a way to contribute.
How many actors have a shot at being a part of something that became a part of pop culture? It's been very rewarding. I'm not getting the 20 million bucks for the new movies, but at least I'm getting warmth and recognition from people wherever I go.
I think it's that wherever I go, people are so nice to me, and they come up by the hundreds, and they say nice, funny things. As an actor, I just like to make people happy, make them laugh. That's our job, to entertain, and if I'm entertaining you folks, then I'm happy.
There was a time when 'Batman' really kept me from getting some pretty good roles, and I was asked to do what I figured were important features. However, Batman was there, and very few people would take a chance on me walking onto the screen. And they'd be taking people away from the story.
I don't want to be Batman. Let Val Kilmer do it. I just want to be Uncle Batman. I have this whole 'warm relationship' plot in my mind. In the final scenes, the new Batmobile breaks down, the new Batman's stranded on the side of the road. We grab our old Batmobile, pick him up and drive away.
One of the most gratifying, rewarding things is when people come up, and they tell you how the show influenced their lives in a very positive way. When I do these things like Comic Con, I get people who are lawyers, judges, plumbers, carpenters, and entire families, and it's mostly for 'Batman.' But now, amazingly, it's also for 'Family Guy.'
Wasn't that a wonderful thing that I had a chance to work with more great actors, big stars, than just about anyone in the history of Hollywood? And some days I didn't know with whom I'd be standing face-to-face, and I was so impressed because they were all really wonderful people. And when you work with Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, George Sanders as Mr. Freeze, it's a wonderful experience.