Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Sometimes I just go, 'Is it me? Am I really just not that likeable?' The cool thing is, when you go out there and see a lady get mad or a guy get mad, or they hate you because you didn't come from the independents, or whatever, what I like to do is just pour kerosene on that fire.
Because I'm a big guy, I was always playing the bad guy or whatever, but after I did 'The Blind Side,' where I played a father who's a really loving, likeable sort of person, a lot of those barriers were broken down. People saw me as something softer, not so much as a heavy anymore.
I don't ever really feel guilty about music, quite frankly. When you're younger, you think that anything you don't like, you have to hate. I'm so far beyond that perspective. Although, I will say I resent Bruno Mars for making me like him as much as I do. I wish that he wasn't so likeable.
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.
If people hate Michael Langdon, that's a good thing. I'm not going to debate that. I don't worry about making him likeable... My real focus in playing Langdon is making his intentions clear and how he operates and what his mission is and how he shapes the perception of who he is around people.
I do think there are some actors that can get away with trying to be funny, and they're still funny because they're just likeable, and you want to see them. Me, though, when you see me trying to be funny, it's like the worst thing in the world. It's needy, it's cloying, it's manipulative - it's bad.
We have come to expect campaigns to be mean and stupid and politicians to be unresponsive, self-seeking and for sale to the highest bidder. We make jokes about our vice president, and all we ask of a president is that he be likeable. We seem to have given up on the Pentagon's corrupt use of our tax dollars.
Possibly the defining development of postmodern politics - naturally, an American one - is the separation of personality from ideology. If you are likeable, or at least not disagreeable, if you can strike a personal bond with the electorate, if you reassure rather than disrupt, it doesn't really matter what you stand for.
If you are, as an actor, are just worried about looking pretty and being well liked, then I personally feel you are doing a disservice to your audience, the craft, the creative process, writers, and directors. Your job is to tell a story and to tell the truth, and we can't always be the most likeable character in every situation.
In 1980s, I discovered 'Late Night with David Letterman.' It was on one of the 13 cable TV channels. They didn't have 25 late night talk show hosts trying to be the most outrageous. There was the likeable television genius Johnny Carson and his mad-genius counterpart Dave. There was nothing else crazy on TV every night, and there was no Internet.
