Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There are certain things that cut right to the bone, but as an actor you have to because you get turned down for things all the time. I have a friend who was told he didn't get a job because he was too hairy. I've never heard anything that bad, but you have to get used to that sort of thing.
[On "John F. Kennedy" set] everybody was very interested in the accent. Even my collaborators were very curious to know if I was even going to do it. And I was, like, "You just can't not do it." I think everybody was worried that it was going to sound like the guy from... is it The Simpsons?
I'm always amazed... I took my 11-year-old to an oceanography camp, and these girls came over to me, and my son was like 'Oh here we go, Dad,' because they had been looking. They were like, 'You're the guy, aren't you?' And I said, 'Well, maybe.' They said, 'He is, he's the guy on 'Charmed!'
There must be a story within him/her that wants to come out. That's the reason why 'Dil Chahta Hai,' 'Lagaan,' and 'Rang De Basanti' worked so well: Ashutosh, Farhan, and Rakesh had a story inside them. It's very important that the director should have the fire in the belly to tell the story.
I would say I am more concerned with the plays I'm going to do than the movies. I'm more comfortable in a play. In film, there's always a certain sense of control, of holding back. The stage is different ; there's more to act. There are more demands put on you, more experiences to go through.
Maybe for others it was difficult to find a role that suited my type. But I never thought of myself as a type. I really thought I could play anything, quite frankly. And I have. Especially in the theater, which is where I came from. And I may go back to soon, as a matter of fact. To Broadway.
Most sailing ships take what they call trainees, who pay to be part of the crew. The Picton Castle takes people who are absolutely raw recruits. But you can't just ride along. You're learning to steer the ship, navigation; you're pulling lines, keeping a lookout; in the galley you're cooking.
I will say that as I get older and calmer and quieter in my own self, the one quality in a woman that I find more and more attractive is kindness. A sense of adventure and humor is important too, but I truly find kindness and consideration for others to be the most attractive thing in anyone.
Trust is a core currency of any relationship. Sometimes our need to control and micromanage everything erodes our confidence in ourselves and others. The truth: People are much more capable than we think. A hearty dose of trust is often what's needed to unlock the magic. Go ahead, have faith.
[Maggie Smith] brings new meaning to the phrase "doesn't suffer fools." She has just the most amazing, dry timing of anyone ever, I think. I think everyone's always known about it, but with her resurgence on Downton Abbey, a whole new generation has been introduced to it, which is just great.
When I was doing the first 'American Pie' movie, I was just happy to have a job. We had a good time, and it was a great group of people, but like any project that I've worked on in my career, you just put your best foot forward, and you're all working together to make the best movie possible.
I'm always amazed... I took my 11-year-old to an oceanography camp, and these girls came over to me, and my son was like 'Oh here we go, Dad,' because they had been looking. They were like, 'You're the guy, aren't you?' And I said, 'Well, maybe.' They said, 'He is, he's the guy on 'Charmed!''
You know, the best-laid plans of mice and men... I like playing bad guys, and I don't have a problem doing that. They're interesting characters, and there's as many different kinds of bad guys as there are good guys - they're rich, they're strong, they're powerful, and so that's fine with me.
I don't know what to say about it except Tom Hanks is a great person, a serious person; he's dissatisfied in a very likeable way, in a very discreet way, and Steven Spielberg is similar in his discretion and drive. But Spielberg is calm. He's this driven filmmaker and visionary. He really is.
I moved to Los Angeles, and 'The Office' became successful, and the charity/cocktail party circuit is really not my scene. But I played golf, and I started getting invited to charity golf events, and I just fell in love with the game ten-fold, and at a lot of these events, there were athletes.
I had heard all sorts of stories about Woody Allen's directing - directorial approach. And some of them turned out to be myth. But, one of them was that he doesn't rehearse and another was that he doesn't really direct, if he doesn't like it...he cuts it out of the movie, or even replaces you.
There's a paraphrase about Orson Welles saying: "Great films are made by great directors and the rest are made by everyone else." I've been very lucky... before I start insulting the profession of directing, but I think a good director is everything and a bad director really is nothing at all.
I just want a big HBO special or a network or somebody willing to get behind my work and promote it. The most frustrating thing for me is to have this successful act that resonates across the country, and the network guys just don't get it. Everyone sees it except them. I want to leave a mark.
It might be different for people that are A-list actors, but a lot of us really look at what's offered to us and look for something that has some traction with other people. But, it's not like I read 100 scripts a week, and then pick and choose. Maybe some actors do. I certainly don't do that.
I'm trying to be really synced. It goes back to the idea that, ultimately, the reward is the work. The staying balanced, it requires you to know that the work you're doing right now is ultimately what is going to give you the sense of freedom that you're hoping to find in a more realized life.
I've always liked texts that you immediately understand. I suppose the playwrights who really speak to me are Edward Bond, Joe Orton and Harold Pinter. I've been in six different Pinter productions - I love the clarity of his language. He has this way of using words - there's a thrill to them.
If you don’t think your anxiety, depression, sadness and stress impact your physical health, think again. All of these emotions trigger chemical reactions in your body, which can lead to inflammation and a weakened immune system. Learn how to cope, sweet friend. There will always be dark days.
If you don't think your anxiety, depression, sadness and stress impact your physical health, think again. All of these emotions trigger chemical reactions in your body, which can lead to inflammation and a weakened immune system. Learn how to cope, sweet friend. There will always be dark days.
My father is an amazing person. While he was a huge star, he never carried his stardom home and always remained simple and just our father at home. I have four siblings, and we were all very grounded. We lived a very simple life: would go in an auto rickshaw to school, played with normal boys.
One day, out of irritation, I said, you know all of those years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, all those years of playing kings and princes and speaking black verse, and bestriding the landscape of England was nothing but a preparation for sitting in the captain's chair of the Enterprise.
It is important to keep the filmmakers interested in you so they can offer you everything and anything. We actors are not given work on the basis of audience poll; the filmmaker will cast you after they see and like your work. It is essential to do different kind of films and not get typecast.
When I was about 12, I came home from middle school and told my parents I wanted to be an actor. My father didn't say it to me, but he told my mom, 'No. I'm not going to allow that. He'll starve to death.' I grew up in a small town in Illinois where being an actor was not something people did.
There's not a human being alive I won't talk to. There's a quite simple rule. If you like somebody more than you dislike them you can have a relationship. Once you accept you like 75 per cent but 25 per cent you find irritating for this or that reason, you just have to ignore that 25 per cent.
Vampires are so old that they don't need to impress anyone anymore. They're comfortable in their own skin. It's this enigmatic strength that's very romantic and old-fashioned. I think it goes back to something of a Victorian attitude of finding a strong man who's going to look after his woman.
Taking photographs seems to be a means to express some kind of emotional, abstractive narrative. I look at the images that I'm most proud of like a film about the world the way I see it (or at least saw it at that moment, a perspective that seems to be ever-shifting and filled with self-doubt.)
Take action. You can either be a passive victim of circumstance or you can be the active hero of your own life. Action is the antidote to apathy and cynicism and despair. You will inevitably make mistakes but at the end of your days, you will be remembered for your gallop, not for your stumble.
I count 'Underworld 4' as my training period for 'Total Recall.' I do think it was hard because I didn't realize how tired I was. It is quite a lot to sustain that kind of physical work over nine months altogether and by the end of it, I definitely felt like I had aged quite a bit in that year.
I think in a sense seeing how films have changed me and seeing how fiction moves me more than facts in many ways, and I think that I can talk for many people that fiction moves us more than real life, it certainly helps us to set forth on this a journey of a utopia, which can never be achieved.
I've been divorced and I had to get back out there be single again and do some of that in the genuinely miserable state where you really do wonder what the hell is going on. And you feel like trying to have casual conversation with someone you don't know on the surface of the moon or something.
My method seems to change to everything, especially when you get older. You have more of a resonance to be able to grab to. When you're younger, you have these big boundaries because you don't know how to get you to where you are. When you get older, you have a few tricks that you can pull off.
I would probably list myself as mostly straight. I've met guys all the time that I'm like, Damn, that's a good-looking guy, you know? I've never been, like, Oh, I want to kiss that guy. I really love women. But I think defining yourself as 100% anything is kind of near-sighted and close-minded.
Buying a particular vintage because everyone tips it and then waiting for it to mature is like gambling. The thrill is in placing the bet. Once the race is run or the match is played, you'll either win or lose. Until that happens, you're caught in this wonderful, agonising sense of expectation.
I am very close to my brother Ramesh Babu. When my father was away for shootings, my brother would take care of me, and I am very close to him, and yes, Dad's always special. He used to call me and enquire about my film's progress. Whenever I deliver a hit, I can see a glow on my father's face.
When my film flops, I believe it is my mistake. There have been times when I didn't come out of my house because my films didn't do well. I lock myself in for months. I don't talk to people. I feel bad for producer, director, for those who lost money. It's never about myself or my career alone.
And then they would have the shoe removers on one side, and the non-shoe removers on the other side until they could work through coming to understand why we might both be trying to worship authentically, and because of our cultural background we have these different ideas. But it took a while.
So they actually put it into their mission statement, and they start changing things as a result. They may change how worship works. They may actively recruit folks and try and get them to come and help them to feel comfortable and get them involved in leadership, and there's a variety of ways.
As an actor, I relish and delight in doing things that I'm not necessarily the demographic for. This is a demographic that is touching the psyche of a certain age group, facing the real internal questions of people who are going through rites of passage into adulthood. It's earth-shaking stuff.
Undoubtedly there is a difference between people with money having access to the arts that people from working-class backgrounds don't have, but that's not their fault. I'm not taking anything away from these brilliant actors who are doing great stuff in Hollywood. A lot of them are my friends.
When I was young and crazy, I was young and crazy. It can be hard enough just to BE in your teens and 20s. Then add fame, money, access, and every single person telling you that you're the greatest person who ever was, and it can be a recipe for disaster. Some people literally don't survive it.
My mother and father raised their eyebrows at first when I said I wanted to be an actor because I was in this industrial city. My dad had done a bit of boxing on the side, but he was a welder first and foremost. I was 17, and I said, 'I want to be an actor.' They worried it was a waste of time.
I always check my harness before I do a stunt; I test-drive the cars I have to race or explode; I'm present at all pyrotechnical rehearsals; and I walk through everything step-by-step. No man should put their life in someone else's hands unless they have covered their own safety from all angles.
A lot of actors on film sets... very often they're not paying attention to the physical world around them. I think through studying art, I've always had that awareness and that's something that I've wanted to bring in to go beyond acting... As a form of expression, they are intrinsically linked.
I was on a show called 'SliDE' when I graduated from college, and then that set the premise of my love for acting. It was so much fun. I was on set with my best friends every day. From that, I got 'Home and Away' and it was such a relaxed, friendly environment. Everyone's so kind and supportive.
Then you realize that the preparation and the planning of this small army of people trying to head to the single aim of creating a work that's going to excite people is very risky. Of course, the odds are that it's not going to work out because there are too many possibilities of it going wrong.
I have always wanted to do daytime television, but past handlers and agents had steered me away from it because they would say to me, "Darius, you have already passed that mark in your career. You have done prime time and feature films and continue to go upward," and I go, "Are you kidding me?".