Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There's so many characters they [studios] are not letting me play. And I thought, "Why don't you just go produce it yourself?".
I went in to play the most corrupt politician I could possibly think of [in "The Congressman"] and to do it with a certain kind of charm.
When people realize you're not the stuffed shirt they think you are it's such a relief and you have people who really like to be around you.
I was a hangover of that era where they’d say “Take off that medal! Is that a St. Christopher medal? You’re going to lose your audience with that.”
Treat [Williams] and I have remained sort of like war buddies. He's a good guy. It doesn't matter who is the wingman, you just know that you work good together.
My mother was a star-struck girl from a little town in Arkansas who had gone to finishing school in New York, and whose mother had given her anything she ever wanted.
It's my personal opinion and I'm not espousing it to anybody else, I think your immune system and how healthy you are determines how you react to any excess of any kind.
Acting has always been something for me that's been a romp. I just show up and I have a good time, and I hope that I get through the day and I can have lunch in the sun.
It's my personal opinion, and I'm not espousing it to anybody else, I think your immune system and how healthy you are determines how you react to any excess of any kind.
It's hard for people to get their hands around fame, because it's heady stuff, and you have to look at it as being dangerous explosives, and you have to handle it with care.
There are a lot of self important people who make you believe they're artistes and high on the intelligence quotient and I've sat down and listened to them and just been bored.
Woody [Allen] is a fascinating character to be around. You don't really know what he's going to want. You're on your toes, but you're on your heels too, if you know what I mean.
After I got out of the studio system, I was completely [broke] for the 30th time; they said I’d never work again. So I’m going to go and produce those movies that they wouldn’t let me do.
Real Madrid are like a rabbit in the glare of the headlights in the face of Manchester United's attacks. But this rabbit comes with a suit of armour in the shape of two precious away goals.
I did a movie with Woody Allen [“Hollywood Ending” in 2002]. I only had a few days with Treat on that film. I immediately liked Treat. Treat and I had a sense of humor about the whole thing.
There are two schools of thought. A manager would tell you that must make them realize you're a dedicated actor and I took a totally different route than that. I never ever took myself seriously.
To my mind, there are no unattractive women; only those who haven't been awakened by love . . . A woman is often like a strip of film-obliterated, insignificant-until a man puts the light behind her.
And in reaching out and doing these new things you get into this strange kind of shape where you are better off than if you were just resting, because you're using things that wouldn't otherwise be mute.
Cary Grant was on the back lot one time doing a movie called "North by Northwest." I would see Cary outside the stage, and he would sit on a set chair and had one of those reflectors. He wanted this tan so he didn't have to use makeup.
When you hear Treat's [ Williams] doing a movie, or you'd like to work with Treat again, you hope the script is good. And then you find out the script is good. You go and you do it for the fun of it. And you feel like you can be proud of something.
Once, as an experiment, I travelled around the world with a single suit. Before I left, I went to a tailor in Savile Row and asked him to make me a suit that I could wear in any climate and which I could use as a tuxedo, a dinner jacket, a lounge suit and a blazer.
John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola and Oliver Stone - those guys are consummate filmmakers. They believe that you don't talk it, you show it. So when I find a role now, I try to find a visual way to tell what the character is about rather than trying to speak about it.
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.
Democracy if it meant what our forefathers said, that would be great but unfortunately it's been corrupted by this funding and funding of campaigns. There's a much better way to do it. There could be a small amount of money given by every taxpayer to be dedicated to candidates.
The first thing my agent told me in 1959 was he said you have to have something recognizable that people will remember. “What are you? Do you have cleft in your chin? You have a Jimmy Stewart kind of talk?” And I thought I don’t know what I can give them that will be different.
Democracy, if it meant what our forefathers said, that would be great, but unfortunately it's been corrupted by this funding and funding of campaigns. There's a much better way to do it. There could be a small amount of money given by every taxpayer to be dedicated to candidates.
You do a movie [where] you like the script [and] it has something to say that you care about. And there are certain people in this industry that you kind of stick with. Guys like [“The Congressman” producer] Fred Roos. They call you, and if you’re not working, that’s what you do.
One day when I was working on a movie, I stayed at the beach a little too long, and they said, “You are going to ruin a whole day of shooting because you’re so dark. Two days ago you weren’t like this!” So I started putting that in the character; I made him suntanned all the time.
I've gone to skin doctors and they'll say to you, 'We should remove this because it's pre-cancerous,' and I'll say, 'Explain pre-cancerous to me.' I'll listen for about twenty minutes and I'll say excuse me, 'Is pre-cancerous like pre-dead? So you're saying it could turn into cancer but it's not cancer?'
You asked me my favorite question: What happened and what did you learn from being under contract to MGM? And the answer is I know how to make movies. I understand how to do that. I've been doing that my whole life. It's just easier to raise the money yourself and then hire yourself. It's possible if you reduce your own budget a little.
I've been in the sun most of my life. I've gone to skin doctors and they'll say to you, 'We should remove this because it's pre-cancerous,' and I'll say, 'Explain pre-cancerous to me.' I'll listen for about twenty minutes and I'll say excuse me, 'Is pre-cancerous like pre-dead? So you're saying it could turn into cancer but it's not cancer?'
Entertainment was transportation. You were supposed to take somebody out of their seat and bring them back in. You’re not supposed to impose your values or your supposed knowledge to manipulate or control people. That was not your job. You were not supposed to use the bully pulpit of Hollywood to pound people with ideas. You’re there to entertain.
I remember a meeting I had at MGM. It was at the end of their reign. They say we have you under contract, and because you’re under contract, we’d like to you to work. I said, well, that seems fair. But if it’s a really good movie, they were going to give it to a particular actor that was not under contract. The bottom line was they were going to pay you more if it was a bad one and pay you less if it was a good one.
At MGM there was a script cage in the basement where they’d show rushes. And I thought to myself, “How do I get into the script cage and find out what my future is?” I climbed into the script cage one night and spent the whole night in there. I saw the bowels of MGM. I saw the studio scripts that the producers had seen; the writers had just handed them in. And I started thinking this is a chance to pick my own roles.
There came [a script called] “Dracula Sucks.” Now, I liked “Dracula Sucks,” but we gotta change [the title]. They said, “If you like that, you’re going to like this: ‘Zorro the Gay Blade.’” I decided I was going to go out and raise the money and develop my own projects. And that’s what I did. I made “Love at First Bite” and I made “Zorro the Gay Blade.” [Script rewriter Hal Dresner] and I put together “Zorro” in about eight weeks.
I'm not known as a singer, but in life I like to do things that are a bit beyond my reach to keep myself from slipping. I find that technology has made it so that we don't need to have a memory system, and as I get older I want to do things that challenge me. What could be more challenging than doing this show with a knee that's been replaced, after tearing my Achilles heel with a baker's cyst on the back of my knee? And then I have to try and dance!
I found a movie called “Light in the Piazza.” I finally made the movie with Olivia de Havilland and myself, but initially there was no way I could make that movie, so I went to work on becoming that character. They told me they had an Italian [actor], and I said, “That’s a Cuban boy!” His name was Tomas Milan. I thought that’s the craziest thing I’d ever heard: They have a Cuban who’s going to play an Italian, and I can’t play it because I’m an American.