Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I was familiar with that and 'Rio Bravo.' 'Rio Bravo' was what John Carpenter did, that brilliant move of taking a western and turning it into an urban flick. And from there you got, you know, all the cop genre movies of the time.
I was always writing. I was writing in high school because it was a really competitive school for class clowns; I used to have to write all of my snaps and my disses the night before and then act like I was making it up the next day.
I love his [Brad Furman] ferocious desire for perfection and his love of vitality, it feeds me, man. It feeds him and it feeds the whole crew. And he's got huge respect for talent. And that's why talent goes in and gives it 300% percent.
Bryan Cranston is generous, he's funny. When we did a wedding scene [in The Infiltrator ], at the end of the movie with a big set piece, he put the veil off the bride, he put it on, he pretended like we were getting married, he's just a goof.
If everyone in your class has heroes, and they can relate to them in textbooks and literature, and then you don't see any of your heritage there, you feel less than. And I always wanted to be able to make Latin kids like myself feel more than.
[Brad Furman] is incredibly collaborative, man. He's so respectful of talent, he has so much admiration for talent. He nurtures you, he lets you give input. Of course we'll debate if we disagree, that's just a healthy atmosphere to air your differences.
It's a product of being an actor, you know? A lot of your work doesn't end up on camera and some of the best things aren't always in the final product. But yeah, a lot of my stuff got cut and it was painful, but I know it was for the better of the movie.
Self-expression is something that you've crafted, something that you've found. You've practiced on that piano for hours, you didn't hang out with your buddies, you didn't go after the girls, you stayed in your own little geeky room or you wrote for hours.
It's the flip side of illegal success. This man [Pablo Escobar ] turned a small-time drug thing into a large industry. An international, successful industry. And he almost took a country, Columbia, he took it almost hostage, took over it. It was incredible.
At Murry Bergtraum [High School] if you were really funny you sat at this table at with all of the funniest dudes, the toughest, the coolest - everybody sat at that table. It was like the ghetto Algonquin Round Table. [Comedy] was my entry, my membership card.
I don't know if tennis players feel like that but when you have a great opponent - although I didn't feel like he [ Ben Mendelsohn ] was an opponent - you just know your game is going to jack up and it's just going to raise the bar. I couldn't wait for that elevation.
You have the hilarity and the great production. These films are distinctive because they are not just topical, they tell good stories and they let scenes play out physically. Apart from the dialogue, the characters also have a non-verbal existence, for example with Scrat.
America may not realize it yet, but Latin prototypes are being created right now, and not just by me. They are these mambo kings and salsa queens, Aztec lords and Inca princesses, every Hernandez and Fernandez, whom this country will one day come to understand and respect.
Bryan Cranston has got such an incredible light touch. He comes in egoless, but with bold opinions, and he wants to play. He wants to play. And that's what I've seen in great actors all my life and what I've always tried to nurture and keep in myself is that joy of playing.
It's been great, I have to dig deep for really raw emotions and at the same time I have to use my intellect to say the ridiculous medical jargon while acting and treating a patient and then I have to try to have a personality and emotions as well. So it is definitely hard work.
I was working at Kentucky Fried Chicken when my math teacher said, "You're failing in school, you're messing up, why don't you just try this?" I said, "Alright, let me try it," and I started going to acting classes and I loved it. I thought, "I may not make it but I love doing it."
In theater, you can be free. That's how Lin-Manuel Miranda got to do the most revolutionary piece of theater with 'Hamilton': color-blind casting in roles in which they would never cast Latinos if it were a film or TV show. It just goes to show that Hollywood and cable are way behind.
I don't think it's my responsibility, but I definitely try to create my own projects that are Latin-based with a Latin crew and Latin cast. I try to give all my characters Latin names whenever I can and make sure that they are of Latin heritage. But that does not work with every project.
It was at a performance art space that's no longer around, Gusto House... All of these great performers from all over the country lived on the Lower East Side, and they would take somebody's living room that opened right onto the street, open the door and charge tickets and put up chairs.
I walked around my apartment with food in my mouth asking myself: "How do I come up with this voice?" Then I found the voice. I called the director and said on the phone: "Guess who you're talking to Chris? Sid, that's right Sid!" And that's how I came up with the voice. That's a true story.
Imagine if Lin-Manuel Miranda had tried to do 'Hamilton' first in Hollywood. They would have told him, 'The forefathers weren't Latino or black. They didn't speak in hip hop.' That would never had gotten going in Hollywood ever. But theater let Lin-Manuel him do it, and he created an incredible masterpiece.
I had to get the voice back, the precise pitch of Sid's voice and I'd forgotten that I'd pitched him higher than my regular voice, so that was a little difficult to begin with. It was especially hard because we started recording in the morning so I had to warm up a lot and my usual voice is a little more gravelly.
t is for me because I needed to do this. I really think actors shouldn't act unless they really need it in their lives. I think it has to be something that is so much a part of your chemistry, such a passion, that you can't live without it. You should not do it just because you are seeking fame or want to get rich.
Well I was about to be expelled from school, I had been arrested and a teacher said: "Why don't you try acting, instead of distracting the class? Why don't you use your comic talent for something more productive?" My maths teacher suggested I do comedy and I decided to have a go. I pursued it after that. I was about 17.
It doesn't make sense. [Republicans are] not for us. You're not for my values. We're working class people mostly and blue collar. We're your cops, we're your firemen, we're your carpenters and the things we need - we need to protect our unions, we need to protect our Medicare, we need to protect the working class person.
I think Brad [Furman] crafted an amazing film [The Infiltrator]. It's so complex, it's incredibly thrilling, incredibly touching and it's what people have been trying to do for years in Hollywood, is to try to capture what it's like to be undercover, what is that duality of life? And I think that Brad really caught that.
I'm hoping my play opens up conversations, I hope it makes people question textbooks, I hope it makes #OscarsSoWhite and #HollywoodSoWhite question things. I hope my play sparks conversation between Latin kids and Latin parents and people start doing their own due diligence as well, I think it's everyone's responsibility.
I grew up with a lot of cats like that and they always were so surprising, magnetic, and electrifying. You can't be with them too long because they burn you out but the energy, the impulsivity, and the freedom connecting them to their animal energy is just so powerful to watch. It's dangerous to live like that but it's riveting to watch.
Voices come to me but to maintain them is hard work. They go away just as easily, so I have to remember them and that takes work. With Sid, I needed to make sure you could understand what he is saying, his enunciation. Sometimes I couldn't even say my own name [his name] in his voice. It sounds like 'Shid', it sounds a bit like he has a lisp.
The message is one of the beautiful things about the film. And I think part of the appeal is simply that they are prehistoric creatures, they are no longer around and that makes them magical and makes us feel quite emotional, because we know that those creatures did not survive in the long run, so there's poignancy in their fight for survival.
Very, that show is crazy. It was like doing finals every week. It was interesting. I really learned a lot. The dialogue is so technical. I was so impressed watching the other actors and how they managed, so I studied them. And I was blown away thinking: "How do they do that? How do they put that extra spin on the complicated dialogue to make it interesting?
I really love it, I love working with directors that are very collaborative and allow me input. I've done over 75 films, it's just like you're an apprentice. You learn so much about camerawork, lenses, and I'm always talking about DPs and directors and they always give me lists. I think pretty soon, I'll be ready to move away from being in front of the camera.
My mom [comes] to see my shows because she's so proud, but I'm talking about losing my virginity, my ex-wife and our sexual problems, and she's sitting in the front row smiling. I just go, "Mom, you can't sit in the front row, you can't smile. You have to go way in the back and dress in black. If I see you it's like you're breaking in when I'm having sex with my wife. It's just wrong."
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.
I did 40 voices for Chris Wedge, the director of the first film, before coming up with the version we used. He was hard to please, I don't know why. I gave him really slow talking voices. then I thought perhaps Sid could be an Indian sounding sloth. To find out more about my character, I watched footage of sloths. I discovered that the food they store in their pouches rots and ferments and half the time they're drunk.
Yes it did really. It was very exciting to find that my energy could be directed into something more useful and positive. I was starting to get panicked. I was thinking 'what am I going to do with my life?' I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Then I became crazily obsessed with acting. I suddenly had a work ethic and then everything changed completely for the better because I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
But when you are doing an animated voice, it has to have more energy than usual or it falls flat and doesn't work. For myself, I found that I had to put myself in the same physical or emotional state as Sid, in order to make that voice sound alive and authentic. So if there was a scene in which he was running, I would be running beforehand to sound out of breath. That's important because the audience can tell intuitively if it does not sound real.
It used to be trained professionals doing animation and they were great. Now they have celebrities and famous actors doing the voices, but that does not always work. But I think this film turned out really well, partly because the three of us (me, Ray and Denis) are comedians who are used to doing solo acts and doing certain types of voices. The three of us are New York guys, we all came up the same way in the profession and we are all edgy and enjoy doing family movies. It was a good combination I think.
It's all about respect; he's looking for respect from his buddies. In the last one he just wanted to hang out, to be part of the group, but this time he wants more from his friends. And without giving the story away, he finally gets something that he has been looking for when the mini sloths kidnap him and take him to their tribal area. He gets to be the Fire King and they worship him and there is an amazing scene with a "call and response" sequence in the style of Cab Callow [the legendary American jazz singer and band leader] between him and his audience.