Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It's been reinforced to me, and it's a little cliche, but I've learned that you can't make a movie that even works, much less that's good, without really good writing and really good acting. That lesson has led me to not be distracted, so much, by the other stuff going on in filmmaking and to focus on the essence of a story, and the words and the events and the way that those are interpreted by the actors. That philosophy has taken me to a place that I really like.
During my incarceration Mother visited me. She had in some way managed to leave the workhouse and was making an effort to establish a home for us. Her presence was like a bouquet of flowers; she looked so fresh and lovely that I felt ashamed of my unkempt appearance and my shaved iodined head.'You must excuse his dirty face,' said the nurse.Mother laughed, and how well I remember her endearing words as she hugged and kissed me: 'With all thy dirt I love thee still.
I didn't have any definition of self. I never fit in, so I started pretending I was other people. I'd find people I thought were cool and dress how they dressed, talk how they talked, do whatever they were into. This led to a period of drugs and anchohol. When his family gave him an ultimatum to get clean or they'd report him to the police Corey said, "I was done fighting myself. I finally said, "I'm gonna start looking at my life and figure out why I'm doing this.
Focused intensity is required to win. I can't stress enough that people who took control of their finances and worked their way out of debt got mad. They got sick and tired of being sick and tired! They said, "I've had it!" and went ballistic to change their lives. There is no intellectual exercise where you can academically work your way into wealth; you have to get fired up - There is no energy in logic; this is behavior and motivation modification, and it works.
One thing we haven't mentioned is something everyone should understand very clearly. Look at the budget that was invested in 'Avatar': who in China has that kind of money to spend on making a movie? So we as Chinese filmmakers should work together to make Chinese movies that can compete as best we can for Chinese audiences, not make lousy movies, but make the best we can for that audience. Concentrate the money, the talent we have on making good movies [for China].
Most of the time I'm not even working, I'm just helping people, because I feel that I am too lucky. If there really is a god, then he really looks after me. All these years he's taken care of me, my career keeps getting better and better. Whatever I want just seems to come. And it keeps coming. So I promised myself that I have to pay for this, payback society. So this is why I started my Jackie Chan Foundation to help children and sick kids and people in hospitals.
It's hard to describe to people how terrible it was when you could only watch cartoons at a certain time in your life. But no, I would watch all of them - the Warner Bros. cartoons and the Bugs Bunnys and then the Tex Avery stuff. Looking back on it, they were so incredibly subversive for their time. You'd think, "Oh, they're just making jokes and this or that." But when you watch them as an adult, you think, "Oh no, they were talking about some pretty deep stuff."
With people in corsets you need, an hour and a half in you have to give somebody something, you have to have those trays with a little bit of fruit going around or something because you get that blood sugar [dropping] thing, so it's curious because that's in your mind at the same time as you're about to say, 'I think it's about the humanity and the depth of feeling and we need to feel [Cinderella] soul expand and by the way, more cheese for the people in the back.'
The criteria [to take or refuse the role] is that I would love to have some kind of dialogue or communication with the director. I need to understand that we can communicate and that we like communication. That's something I have to have a strong feeling about. Secondly, I have to find the script intriguing or interesting. I don't have to understand the whole script, but I do have to find it intriguing. If those two things are present, that would probably be a yes.
Anyone who grew up in the crack era - you know, I grew up in that era - knew that there were also people out - and there are still guys to this day that are out there, you know, obviously drug dealing - but those were the guys who had access and had money. And some of those guys felt responsible to create opportunity for other people and were also aware of the dangers of their work and often aren't really the ones that are encouraging kids to get into drug dealing.
Our works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some of them, for a few decades or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war, or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash - the triumphs, the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A fact of life: we're going to die. "Be of good heart," cry the dead artists out of the living past. "Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing." Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much.
In the old days when I first was coming up, you would turn up on set in the morning with your coffee, script, and hangover and you would figure out what you were going to do with the day and how you were going to play the scenes. You would rehearse and then invite the crew in to watch the actors go through the scenes. The actors would go away to makeup and costume and the director and the DP would work out how they were going to cover what the actors had just done.
Now the dressing-room full of RSC hierarchy. Suddenly Trevor Nunn pushes his way through and 'Trevs' me. I've heard a lot about this 'Trevving', but never had it done to me. From what I'd heard, a 'Trev' is an arm round your shoulder and a sideways squeeze. But this 'Trev' is a full frontal hug, so complete and so intimate that the dressing-room instantly clears, as if by suction. I'm left alone in the arms of this famous man wondering whether it's polite to let go.
I grew up in Arkansas and that's the law. My dad was a high school basketball coach, so I was raised as a coach's son and I was a baseball player back in Arkansas, and I lived in Texas, too, so I was just surrounded by sports. So that's what I was going to do: Pitch for the St Louis Cardinals. I had no idea I was going to be an actor. So I got my collar bone broken in the Kansas City Royals training camp. And once I got hurt I started doing other things for a while.
There's something that happens where you go, if you're lucky, goodness me, from film to another film to another film. And you can sort of feel that if you step off that treadmill, it might all go horribly wrong and you might never be employed again, you know. And I suddenly thought that that's not necessarily the case. And I also thought we make drama as actors about people in the world and that if you are on that treadmill, you start making films about other films.
Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference. So unless we're going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes.
I was going to be a High School teacher. I was studying at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, up in Canada. I was also acting in a wonderfully supportive theatre community in Edmonton. There's a lot of support for theatre there. So, I was having a great time, but I didn't consider acting as a serious career initially, because even the most successful actors that I know in Edmonton are not super successful. Acting over there is just not a success-oriented career.
I love technology. Matches, to light a fire is really high tech. The wheel is REALLY one of the great inventions of all time. Other than that I am an ignoramus about technology. I once looked for the 'ON' button on the computer and came to find out it was on the back. Then I thought, anyone who would put the 'on' switch on the back, where you can't find it, doesn't do any good for my psyche. The one time I did get the computer on, I couldn't turn the damn thing off!
I'd say that, in addition to actually taking my brother and sister and I camping and hiking and river rafting all our lives and introducing us to the power of natural landscapes, his [my father's] biggest impact on my thinking has been to always argue that the "spiritual case for Nature" was not going to outweigh the needs of 7 billion people and to insist that law, science and economics were the critical frameworks through which we had to defend the value of nature.
I remember Chris Cooper saying to me - I was doing October Sky with him - and he said, "You know, you're just yelling at me." He's like, "You're just yelling. You need to listen." We were in a fight, and you know, oh you'd get so excited as an actor, you're like, "We have a fight, oh, I get to get mad." And he just said, "You need to listen." And I started listening - and then all of a sudden where I was listening was where, I don't know, anger became something else.
Well, the experience for me making a film is the most profound one. I really don’t have any business watching the movie so much. Maybe I could watch it for entertainment purposes, but you have so little input and control of the final product once you’re done that I feel like I just would rather leave it alone. It kind of leaves me in a place where every film I do, I’m kind of having to reinvent and figure out how to start again fresh, and hopefully not repeat myself.
Over the course of the millennia, all these ancestors in your tree, generation upon generation, have come down to this moment in time-to give birth to you. There has never been, nor will ever be, another like you. You have been given a tremendous responsibility. You carry the hopes and dreams of all those who have gone before. Hopes and dreams for a better world. What will you do with your time on this Earth? How will you contribute to the ongoing story of humankind?
I see these other actors come up with this tough-guy personas and now when they're on talk shows they're all... But that's not really the way they are. I probably could have used a little bit of that. At one point I was labeled "The King Of Dumb White Guys." I was offended by that when I was younger, but I understand what that's from, so I was like, "Only a genius can play a fool." But I'm very aware of that, and I'll play into it and use it however I need to use it.
Damon Lindelof said, "There are three kinds of prophets - crazy people, like the Guilty Remnant, false prophets, who just want money, sexy and power and use that to get it, and real prophets - and you're a real prophet in 'The Leftovers'. The voices that speak to you never tell you a lie." And I said, "Name me some real prophets." He said, "Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad." I said, "Which one am I?" And he said, "None of them. You're probably closer to Moses than anyone."
I've always been a very rebellious, philosophical person, so my mother set the foundation for my appreciation for nature and my empathy for other people. But then, being a sort of rebellious, philosophical thinker, I'm always looking for new ways to shake things up. So I feel like I'm really lucky to be alive in a time where there's so much opportunity to disrupt and shake it up. It's sort of a combination between that and having the foundation that my mother gave me.
I think it go serious in college when I found out I really enjoyed making people laugh. It makes me happy. I said, I wanna be a comedian, I wanna get good.' You're not good in the beginning. You're still trying to figure out what the things are that you are going to talk about, what your angle is going to be and there's a lot of trial and error. I just never gave up and that was the beginning of my career. Just experimenting, trying it out and falling in love with it.
Good genre movies are a little bit like trying to write a haiku. There are certain things that you have to do to fulfill the audience's expectations, but inside that, you have complete freedom to talk about whatever you want. Who wants to see a movie about gun violence in America and class? But, if you set it in this terrifying, fun, roller coaster ride of a movie, you can talk about whatever you want. That's been the game that genre movies play, when they do it well.
You have to fail, man, but you cannot allow failure to stop you from doing what you must do. Failing is just as good as succeeding in a lot of ways. It's how you react to it all. You can react to success the wrong way and be a total failure. Or you can react to losing with your whole heart, learn from it, and be a huge success. In stand-up, I've learned to know when I'm burning it up or when I'm being so-so. That's experience. I learn every single time I'm on a stage.
I respect journalism. I was always very aware of journalism from a very broad point of view, but I'd say my baptism by fire was doing the Donald Margulies play Time Stands Still. That for me was a real education because I spent a lot of time with some incredible journalists, war reporters particularly - Bob Woodruff, Dexter Filkins - people who were very helpful in painting the picture for me and reading the accounts of people and what they experienced, a lot of PTSD.
I didn't know what to do. How do you tell an eight-year-old boy his mother's going to die? I tried. In my own stumbling way I tried to prepare Jim for it. Nowadays, he lives in a world we don't understand too well, the actor's world. We don't see too much of him. But he's a good boy, my Jim. A good boy, and I'm very proud of him. Not easy to understand, no sir. He's not easy to understand. But he's all man, and he'll make his mark. Mind you, my boy will make his mark.
I'm getting so old - it's more uncomfortable to do those scenes now than when I was 20. I mean, I don't have a big problem with nudity on screen. But usually the days when you do those naked love scenes are the weirdest ones on set. Everyone is uncomfortable. You're like, 'Hi. How are you?' Then the next minute you're with an actress who you don't know and you're pretending to make love to her in front of all the crew. The acting challenge is pretending things are OK.
A lot of young actors have the idea that, "I've got to do this right. There's a right way to do this." But there's no right or wrong. There's only good and bad. And "bad" usually happens when you're trying too hard to do it right. There's a very broad spectrum of things that can inhibit you. The most important thing for actors - and not just actors, but everybody - is to feel loose enough to create what you want to create, and be free to try anything. To have choices.
When you read the [Twilight series], it's like saying 'Edward Cullen is so beautiful I creamed myself'. I mean every line is like that. He's the most ridiculous person who's so amazing at everything. I think a lot of actors tried to play that aspect. I just couldn't do it. And the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy, so that's how I played him, as a manic-depressive who hates himself. Plus, he's a 108-year old virgin, so there's clearly some issues there
The similarities between street drug abuse and psychotropic prescription drug use are disturbing. Both types are toxic. Both can cause psychosis, damage the brain and other organs, and even cause death. And neither type of mind-altering drugs, legal or illegal, treats disease. It's important to recognize that the only significant difference between many prescription psychotropic drugs and street drugs such as "speed" and "downers" is that prescription drugs are legal.
I remember in the Carpenter version, you got acquainted with the characters and really knew them. It was a real character piece. Each actor was serviced in the movie, and we tried to do that in this movie as well. I like the fact that there was a European, first-time director. I'd known of him because I'm from Europe. I knew him as a commercial director and thought one of his commercials was great. I thought it was an interesting take on such a big-budget cult classic.
Snow Cake is a lovely film. Really proud of that. We shot it in 21 days. I thought Sigourney was amazing in it. And very, very accurate. I think there was some element that thought she had pushed it too far. But not at all when you do the amount of homework she had done and spent the amount of time she did with adult autistics. She was right on the money. And I think Marc Evans is a terrific director. He's a sweet, open, honest man and a really good director of actors.
I don't think I would ever be a doctor, but the reason I majored in science was because you could become a civil engineer, you could become a biologist, you could become a computer scientist - that was the point of it. I had no idea what I wanted to do. In my last two years of high school here happened to be these few scripts that I really responded to. Eventually, I landed the job, and that was something that I felt transcended whatever other people would think of me.
I don't want to do only movies that I'm in. I definitely want to start to branch out and do TV and stuff that I'm not in and really make a good run at it as a production. I'm probably going to take a break from acting after a little while because I've enjoyed the developmental process so much. It helps you as an actor to learn story and to learn how to really nurture a script and work with a writer so you're not sitting there having to write it yourself and give notes.
In a very philosophic sense I think doing the work is itself a good thing. But at the end of the day, since we're taking other people's shekels to do it, and their work is being able to make a return out of it, it forces you to consider the fact that you're doing it for other people. The whole construct is built around the assumption that it's going to get shared, and that someone else is going to find value in it - entertainment, catharsis, enlightenment, or whatever.
There are always going to be people that are judgmental that are going to say, 'Well, he was an actor first, so he doesn't have the right to be a musician,' or, 'I know him as this, so therefore I will never accept him as that.' I can't change those people. I can only be myself. And I can only keep making art. I can only do the best that I can. I am not going to spend my life trying to silence the critics. I'm going to do what I'm passionate about and follow my dreams.
In voicing so much is left to your imagination to create the world around you like that. It's really the essence of what's so fun for, I think, many people when they first start to want to be an actor, is that they realise they enjoy making up a world around them to exist in, a whole situation and a whole way of being. And even more so than theatre, animation requires that because there's just nothing to go on. It's in your head and your heart or it's not there at all.
My childhood was pretty colorful; I like to use the word turbulent. But it was a great time to grow up, the '70s and '80s in Brooklyn, East Flatbush. It was culturally diverse: You had Italian culture, American culture, the Caribbean West Indian culture, the Hasidic Jewish culture. Everything was kind of like right there in your face. A lot of violence, you know, especially toward the '80s the neighborhood got really violent, but it made me who I am, it made me strong.
The first job I ever did in the theatre, I was supposed to be a genius piano player. I couldn't play the piano, but you just sit there at a piano like you're playing, and suddenly all this amazing music comes out and the audience believes you can do it. It's the same with computers. I love scenes where there are people yanking at monitors, "yes I'll put you through now," and you know they're just doing that. But you can look brilliant at all this technology. I love it.
Frankly, I get much more sensitive about what's written about me than how I look in a photo. I'm so used to people seeing my image in plays and films that what they think about how I look is none of my business. If they says, "Hey, he doesn't look good," I'm like, Whatever, because I know I look different from day to day. But if you're up there putting your heart into something and people reject your performance, that's very painful. The written word can kick your ass.
Remember: Life is short, break the rules (they were made to be broken) Forgive quickly, kiss slowly Love truly, laugh uncontrollably And never regret anything that makes you smile. The clouds are lined with silver and the glass is half full (though the answers won't be found at the bottom) Don't sweat the small stuff, You are who you are meant to be, Dance as if no one's watching, Love as if it's all you know, Dream as if you'll live forever, Live as if you'll die today
There's a difference between ad-libbing and improvising. And there's a difference between not knowing what to do and just saying something. Or making choices as an actor. As a writer also, as a person who's making a film, as a cameraman, everything is a choice. And it seems to me I don't really have to direct anyone or write down that somebody's getting drunk; all I have to do is say that there's a bottle there and put a bottle there and then they're going to get drunk.
When my agent called me up and said, "Do you want to be in a movie called Sharknado?" I said, "What is it about? Is it really about sharks falling out of the sky and eating people?" And she said, "Yes." And I said, "Definitely. That is going to be a huge hit. That is going to put to rest the Home Alone dad image. I'm going to be the Sharknado drunk instead, hopefully." And I was right. I don't know how I knew that, but I just knew that Sharknado was going be a huge hit.
I went to school, and I remember that you had to do these tests to find out what set you're in - how clever you are. I put down "Kit Harington," and they looked at me like I was completely stupid, and they said, "No, you're Christopher Harington, I'm afraid." It was only then I learnt my actual name. That was kind of a bizarre existential crisis for an 11-year-old to have, but in the end I always stuck with Kit, because I felt that's who I was. I'm not really a "Chris."
Socially, hip-hop has done more for racial camaraderie in this country than any one thing. 'Cause guys like me, my kids - everyone under 45 either grew up loving hip-hop or hating hip-hop, but everyone under 45 grew up very aware of hip-hop. So when you're a white kid and you're listening to this music and you're being exposed to it every day on MTV, black people become less frightening. This is just a reality. What hip-hop has done bringing people together is enormous.
There's always room. That's what the directors usually want. They want the performer to bring themselves and give what they have to give for the role. The smart ones allow that to happen because then it becomes even more organic within the performer's imagination. It becomes even more real. It's not always a given in other films, but when Gunn works, and we all work together in a collaborative way like that, it becomes a given that you bring it. It becomes a lot of fun.