Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Until I read Neill's book, 'Summerhill,' I thought there were only two ways to bring up children, either with authoritarian discipline or with permissiveness. Either way, hopefully, applied with love. Now I know there is a third way: teaching a child self*regulation, not by coercion or by abandoning discipline, but by freedom with responsibility.
I do not choose to be a common man…it is my right to be uncommon—if I can…I seek opportunity—not security…I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed… to refuse to barter incentive for a dole… I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence, the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopias….
We all had such larks. Yes, it was hard work but the friendships and the genuine respect we had for one another, that side I shall miss greatly. I've stopped acting, but I don't think I've finished using my voice. I could, and probably will, record the whole of Shakespeare's sonnets. They live at the side of my bed and are my constant companions.
[Doctor Cukrowicz] was basically a role where you have two diva actresses - Maggie Smith and Natasha Richardson - and my role was to say, "And then what happened? Tell me more." But I wanted to do it was because a) it was Tennessee Williams, a great writer, and b) it was Richard Eyre, an amazing director. And to work with those two amazing women!
To me there is nothing so admirable as a passionate love-bond between two human begins. Sam loves Frodo and wants to protect him and Frodo is extremely protective of Sam. So what you have are these two people locked into this journey together. They don't need to explain what they are to each other, they don't need to talk about it; they just are.
As a person, I am still very middle class. People don’t realise these things. Most of the black suits that I wear are the same. All the designer clothes I have are actually from my films. I don’t dream of Rolls Royce and things like that… People are kind enough to me to give me the nicest things in life, but it doesn’t mean that I’m used to them.
When I was doing 'Scarface,' I remember being in love at that time. One of the few times in my life. And I was so glad it was at that time. I would come home and she would tell me about her life that day and all her problems and I remember saying to her, look, you really got me through this picture because I would shed everything when I came home.
So, we get into the first piece. Then, layer, layer, layer, do all of this. Then we jump into the trousers. Then I'm zip-tied in to this bottom piece and glued into the feet. So you can't get out. There is a zipper...somewhere. But it'll cost you money to find out where. And to actually make it functional, it's pretty ridiculous. So, I plan ahead.
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.
With the CGI, suddenly there's a thousand enemies instead of six - the army goes off into the horizon. You don't need that. The audience loses its relationship with the threat on the screen. That's something that's consistently happening and it makes these movies like video games and that's a soulless enterprise. It's all kinetics without emotion.
I didn't have a fraternity-like experience. I mean, I grew up with an older brother and a lot of male cousins and we were very physical with each other. We were very rambunctious when we were kids. But I never thought much - nor did I have reason to think much - about institutionalized hazing. But I think there's a reason young men are drawn to it.
They have a good ethos at Guildhall in that they basically throw loads of different things at you. Their theory is that after you leave, if you use 10 of those 100 things, that's great. The other 90, you might not agree with or might not work for you as an actor. But if you can find 10 that work for you, then ultimately you leave as a better actor.
I was really unfit for a while, so once I began running, I developed an obsession with it and started feeling really good. Then I thought I'd run a marathon after watching the London Marathon on TV. So I did it and had a good time. And then I ended up doing a bunch, and I was like, 'What if I could go further?' So I found out about Ultra Marathons.
I would say I like expressing myself in different ways. The way I can express myself in songs is awesome. What you can express through acting is cool too. I just want to let it all out. I like them both for different reasons, though. Music has a freedom that acting doesn't really have, and acting presents a challenge that music necessarily doesn't.
I don't think it's ever hard to punch someone in the face who's just punched you in the face. I would say that anyone who thinks they can walk up to someone and punch them in the face without getting punched back is an idiot. At the end of the day, if someone came up here and punched you, trust me, you would fight back. That is just basic survival.
I have a great interest in Victorian musical & cabaret performances and Weimar artists so the references are there, to Cabaret and also All That Jazz and other films where, where there's a kind of (influential German playwright Bertolt) Brecht-ian approach, almost to the character standing outside of himself or, in this case, he's "self-séance-ing."
We've all got a lot of catching up to do. I'm still learning how to act, for god's sake. When I see these old-timers on the Turner Classic Movies, I still get ideas, you know. That's where you really learn acting. If you really see some of these old boys working it and you say to yourself, "My God, if I could really do that that would be wonderful."
In acting you do a lot of research. Audience watch Jet Li because of the fight. They watch other actors because they are funny. If they want funny, they don't want to see Jet Li, they watch the other guy. That's the reality I face, until the one day I can prove I can make film without action that is a fun movie. Then everybody will say Jet Li, hmmm.
Miles Davis, my one and only real hero of my life. I met him [because] every time I had a movie interview, I would shift the conversation to jazz. Miles, when I finally met him, he knew he had a sucker walking in the door. Because his people told him, “This guy plays the trumpet and every freakin’ interview he has ever given, he’s talked about you.”
Working with people you adore and love. There's just a sense, all the way through all of the movies [Planet of Apes], that you're very rarely in a position where you have great material that you're passionate about and a big audience who love it, and the detail and nuance, and the exquisiteness of the fantastic actors and director with great writing.
First I found [Elvis] to be a gentleman and then a gentle man. I found he could be sensitive to small issues. For someone of his stature there is very little for him to notice, ya know? He's so insulated by the people who surround him and by his own popularity. And yet Elvis will still find little things. He'll take the time to be gentle with people.
There's no point in it unless it's a story that you really want to tell. It's a nebulous job. Unless you're doing it well, you're not doing anything. And there are a few of those. It's perfectly possible to be a passenger on a film set because if somebody else has written it, you can make nothing of that role and that's exactly what bad directors do.
There are still so many risks to coming out in a conservative society, and I don't think suggesting one way of doing things will work for everybody. I do believe, however, that you can only be happy if you are true to yourself. So taking that first step - of coming out to yourself - that's something I hope every young LGBT person can feel safe doing.
It was an all-white church. It was starting to decline. They had to hire a new pastor, and they hired him. But he came under the condition that "I want and I'm called to make this a multiethnic church." So they knew. He's interesting because he's part-Asian, part-white. He's married to a Hispanic woman, so that's their family and that's their vision.
I'm proud of everything I've done. If it's comedy, it's 'cause I think it's funny. If it's a drama, it's impactful. I'm leaning towards dramas now because I wrapped a couple comedies in a row. I don't like watching myself, but it's easier on me when I don't have to carry a lot of the comedy. But I enjoy making comedies but dramas come more naturally.
The idea that human-transforming technology that mingles the dna of natural and synthetic beings and merges man with machines could somehow be used or even inspired by evil supernaturalism to foment destruction within the material world is for some people so exotic as to be inconceivable. Yet nothing should be more fundamentally clear, as students of
I was a self-centered bore. I was masochistic, and only thought I was happy. When I woke up and said, "there must be something wrong with me", I grew up. Because I never understood myself, how could I hope to understand anyone else? That's why I can truly say that now I can give a woman love for the first time in my life, because I can understand her.
So getting that balance between what is honoring scripture and the Word and also acknowledging the fact that by the virtue of putting it on film there's going to be a variation and adaptation, I mean, it's a fine dance and a balance. Our producers and directors have worked so hard to get that right and I'm really proud. I think it's a pretty good job.
Doing action, the thing is it's cool to watch it, and as a guy I like seeing it. With the romance thing it's something everyone can relate to. Once you have love as a motivator in a story, I think everyone can do anything. Once someone's in love they can do the craziest thing that no one's ever thought of. You have that excuse to do whatever you want.
I’m not saying this is an absolute but in a way, if you’re not having kids – who gives a damn? Love who you want. Isn’t that what we say? Gay marriage – love who you want? If it’s your brother or sister it’s super-weird, but if you look at it, you’re not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you’re in love with one another.
I felt hopeful for the future because Obama is here. But nothing has changed. It's time for young kids to get serious again and really think about what their four fathers were like. As African-Americans, we are resilient, we are some bad mf-ers, and we are survivors. So get those i-pods out of their ears and become heroes again like the Freedom Riders.
Theater gave me the confidence to believe I could play something else, 'cause it was so difficult. It was me out of my comfort zone. It gave me the confidence to believe that I could push myself and challenge myself and still succeed. Yeah. I'm very, very glad I did it. And I'm very keen, now, to take what I learned there into more television and film.
Many years ago I sent an old, beloved jacket to a cleaner, the Sycamore Cleaners. It was a leather jacket covered in Guinness and blood and marmalade, one of those jobs... and it came back with a little note pinned to it, and on the note it said, 'It distresses us to return work which is not perfect.' So that will do for me. That can go on my tombstone.
Sometimes people that are very good at improvisation in life, meaning like stage improvisation, aren't good in films because you have to ultimately take a scene where it needs to go. It's not about just saying something that's funny. You can say something funny but if it's not on story or driving the scene to its end it's really not very helpful at all.
I was thinking about that. I was thinking, this is like our Boyhood; this is like our getting together over 12 years to make - this our Apehood! I mean, this is it! For me, the relationships, all of those things, over such a long period of time now with actors, but also seeing the characters grow, develop, and change, and go through different situations.
No, obviously, the time goes by, the English gets better. Ever since I met Melanie, that was almost nine years ago now, you have to just speak the language continuously, hone every word. So, and the proof for me of that, was actually in theater. It has to be two hours and 45 minutes on the stage speaking a language that is not your language, and singing.
I am an old, old friend of Aaron Sorkin's, who is the executive producer and writer. He had been talking about doing a political show for a long time and I had been interested in it for a long time. The moment I became available, he called me last year and asked me if I wanted to do it and then I just had to audition for the powers that be, and I got it.
I do these things, as an actor, that I would have been oblivious to, if I hadn't studied acting. You start to understand the emotions and feelings, as close as you can get to them. That really helps. Acting literally saved my life. It helped me not become one of the statistics of all the military members taking their lives because of depression and PTSD.
My thing from the beginning is to have it be useful, and be able to help others. It's about being efficient and getting there as fast as you can. If people want to do it more artistically or in a freestyle way, I have absolutely no problem with it — that's the way it's going to evolve. It's not my style, but if it's other people's [style], that's perfect.
When you're battling against the minds of the studios and the money that can go into promoting larger budget films, it's very hard for a very small-budget Australian film to get a look in. You can get critically acclaimed and go to various film festivals around the world, but that doesn't necessarily mean the majority of people are going to hear about it.
I think one of the things that might distinguish me is when I'm going to work as an actor I really try not to worry about my own personal hang-ups and just really concentrate on the work. Because I have such a respect for acting, which is something I feel like I'm constantly learning how to do, that all of my energy is always focused on the acting itself.
For my entire career, I wanted to be a director. When I was in the theater, it was very difficult to get directing jobs, and I fell into the acting by default. I got in the habit of accepting whatever came my way. Not things that I disagreed with, though. It's not like I had aspirations - well, I did have aspirations to play Hamlet, which I ended up doing.
People expect your life to change completely. The main difference is I can get work now. I can do my hobby as a job. It's great. It's a privilege. But in terms of the rest of the stuff, I still got all the same group of friends I always had. I don't do anything different. We still go to the same dirty bars and do the same things. So nothing really changes.
The relationship between human and animal is wholly symbiotic. The person needs the animal for comfort and companionship, and the animal needs the love and caring of the human. It is a classic "win-win" situation. It sounds simple - and it is. That is why it works so well. In most cases, it will be remarkably spiritually uplifting to both human and animal.
The way Shakespeare wrote Fallstaff is with a heightened language and everything. That's the genuis of having Ken Branagh here as well. Shakespeare doesn't require you to have a doctorate in his language or whatever to understand him. It just has to be directed and played right. It's all about scale and presence and getting these huge, epic stories across.
I was... 15? And Garry Marshall, who had many, many seasons in the sun and a very long career, was in the middle of the brightest of all his seasons - I think he owned network television - and it was his next thing, and he was directing [Mean Jeans ]. And I thought, "If there's anyone who can bring comedy out of a designer jeans shop, it's gotta be Garry."
I think boxing is a singular sport, because the stakes are so high and because it just appeals to people's primal instincts. It's a life and death sport, and it's a sport of sacrifice. It's a humbling sport, and people are coming from humbling circumstances. It's always fun to watch a person that's come from nothing to having everything and losing it again.
At age 12 I had an obsession with Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and then proceeded to watch all the other Kubrick films I could including a doc called Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures in which it was revealed to me that he started as a photographer...I got a camera sometime shortly after, but spent many years just photographing flowers in my neighborhood.
I'm wearing three hats; I'm acting, producing, and directing. I was very involved in developing the script, too. But to me, that is very liberating. To me, the lower the budget, the more I want to be involved. I want to be more in control of my own destiny when there isn't much money involved, because you don't have the experts who can control your destiny.
I was desperately unhappy with it [Blade Runner]. I was compelled by contract to record five or six different versions of the narration, each of which was found wanting on a storytelling basis. The final version was something that I was completely unhappy with. The movie obviously has a very strong following, but it could have been more than a cult picture.