Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I had great qualms about playing a man who was living. I've never met Walt McCandless, and I never will.
The simple fact of existence, of being aware that you are aware; this to me is the most astounding fact.
People who have expertise or the luck to have rehearsal time with cameras have it over people who don't.
Being famous is not something that would make me feel successful - unless one was striving for mediocrity.
You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people's idea of that mold.
The thing is David is also aware of everything and it's not like you're going somewhere the director is not.
The Alexander Technique has helped me to undo knots, unblock energy and deal with almost paralysing stage fright
But it's also another myth to think that you should be as tight as a drum and not have any frailties or fragilities.
Celebrity is a pathological sickness of the culture. Narcissists on screen being consumed by narcissists off-screen.
I have never worked with anyone who I hold in higher esteem than Chris Menges. He's an absolute, bona fide, authentic artist.
When you are a kid, you are beset by fears, and you think, 'I'll solve the fear by living forever and becoming a movie star.'
I was very lucky when I was a kid - I travelled a lot and spent a lot of time in Africa, Asia and Europe. I also chant in Sanskrit.
You don't look at it as the size of the role. Quantity is not the point. You can be as thorough in 30 seconds as you can in three hours.
I'm coming from the notion that acting is an art. It is not a business. It is about building characters, not about selling personalities.
Play is play, fun is fun, and work is work. They're different. I work hard; even if it's supposed to be fun for someone else, it's work for me.
The amount of financial and imaginative energy that's put into mediocrity is just amazing, which I find to be fundamentally offensive as a human being.
I've been delighted by Cannes and Toronto but I keep saying I don't know how good we're going to be received in America because that's where it's most challenging
I've been delighted by Cannes and Toronto but I keep saying I don't know how good we're going to be received in America because that's where it's most challenging.
It was the moment I learned acting is not acting out. After that light went on, I spent the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make other people realize it.
The point is that there are challenges within techniques. When you differentiate in technique, you challenge yourself; you ask yourself the same question in a new way.
You cut off the capacity for grief in your life, and you cut off the joy at the same time. They both come up through the same tunnel. You don't have one without the other.
I have a film I want to direct. Gena Rowlands was going to do it with me a long time ago. It's about an older woman who's running a ranch in the west the old fashioned way.
I have a way of synthesizing. That's what I would encourage any young person to do: take in the ideas, the conflicts, and the world. Watch and listen and live before you go public.
Heroes to me are guys that sit in libraries. They absorb knowledge and then the risks they take are calculated on the basis of the courage it took to become replete with knowledge.
I am constantly asked, 'What's the difference between acting in the theater and acting in film?' The only answer I can give is the space - you adapt to the space. But acting is acting.
The thrill of acting is the discovery part, so it all changes, but it has to change in a way that fits what is written. You can't just wander off and get interested in your own tangent.
I don't want my children to have to wade through the crap to get to the cream, you know. I want them to be aware that I struggled to live with and tell my truth, and that it was a decent thing.
The problem with Google is you have 360 degrees of omnidirectional information on a linear basis, but the algorithms for irony and ambiguity are not there. And those are the algorithms of wisdom.
The thing is, I don't believe in most of what's done. The amount of financial and imaginative energy that's put into mediocrity is just amazing which I find to be fundamentally offensive as a human being.
Not to be offensive, not to be capricious, not to be arbitrary, not to be neurotic, not to be an actor outer, you're just trying to get in and you're given so little time to get in gently, but it's always hard.
I am not a famous person at home - I'm just a guy here. I'm a father, I'm a companion, I'm a human being. I am not a public figure in my house; I am not a celebrity. I am not a famous person to myself - I am just a guy.
Every single second of extra time to work with other actors has definitely always, for me, paid off for the film. For the project. Every single extra heartbeat you could get, mutually considering the scene, was of benefit.
I'm not comfortable with walking the red carpet in a tuxedo and seeing all the women with their boobs pushed up and all the men dressed as penguins - particularly when the subject of your film is the nature of violence and humanity.
The irony is that the more specific you are in the portrayal of character, the more like other people you are. In the same way, the more you think about how alone you are in this life, you realise how much a brother and sister everyone else is.
I'm not there to tailor the role to me: I'm there to tailor me to the role. That guarantees me something, a precious thing, which is creativity. I'm guaranteed that I will have a creative experience, because I will go to it, not demand that it comes to me.
I grew up in the South Pacific. Basically, my brothers were Guamanian. I spoke words of Guamanian long before I spoke words of English, and so I've seen a lot. You know, I've traveled in places where people don't have the benefits of American life. And so I've seen a lot of stuff.
Fame... it's been a challenge, let's put it that way. It's a privilege and a responsibility, and I'm not sure I carried the responsibility well at times, which is embarrassing. And I've had to look and be disappointed in myself occasionally for how I behaved in some circumstances.
When I look at a person, or a character, it is in every case the beginning of an endless journey. And I don't suppose I know where that starts. I know that I have to, like every other person, make decisions and have opinions. But I'm real careful to not judge crassly or cheaply someone else's life.
The enemies of acting are mood and attitude and other general homogenized disruptive entities. Whereas acting is about action - doing - and unless you can figure out a way to craft in an imaginative reality to which you don't submit, you're going to be out of control. You'll flip out. The job is to be surprised.
It's been a long comeback. Things were pretty dark for me. But I have a faith now, and it saves my day. I was angry with God for a long time because I was unhappy with me. I hadn't learned to make the distinction between God and my parents. But there's a peace now. In the end, I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.
You get older, and people start passing away. And so if you're lucky - my mom died very young, for instance, and I have friends who died very young - but the point being that, I think if you're awake, you know you're going to pass on. And that the real treasure in life is the long term - relationships that you really value.
My first cousin, by the way, on my father's mother side was John Marshall Harlan, who was a Supreme Court justice, as was his grandson. And I think a lot of my fight and my work to struggle for fairness and the techniques of theater and in subject matter probably stems in some way from some sense I have of his issues in life.
For as privileged an actor as I have been, TV as a standard is short shrift. They have to do it so quickly that they don't stop and take a look. They just shoot. So that's one of the reasons I typically stay away from it. I think art is an act of consideration, and if you're not considering, I don't think you're really doing mankind a favor.
The art is about opening, it is not about prejudice, it is not about contempt prior to investigation. It's about endlessly trying to keep from having contempt by admitting that you don't know. Even if you know a lot compared to some other people, usually, I think, the honest experience would be: "God, how little I know! And how much I need to have compassion for myself and for other people."