Quotes on Actor

If you want a bourgeois existence, you shouldn't be an actor. You're in the wrong profession.

I want variety. I want versatility. Otherwise, I'm wasting the opportunity of being an actor, which is all about variation and change.

I told everyone I would never be an actor. People used to tell me, 'Hey, you got a good look. You should try.' And I was like, 'Nah. That's not me.' And then, the moment I tried it, I found I loved it more than anything in the world, and that taught me a lesson. That is, just go for it.

I started as a straight actor. I'd go onstage, and I'd think, 'Wow, this is the only thing I want to work really hard at. I will rehearse fifty times on a single scene; I don't care - I'll do it again.'

I'm much more open to being a supporting actor right now. At the age of 60, I'll be second fiddle. Fine. I'm happy to do it.

I think actors get too comfortable. I like being uncomfortable as an actor because it keeps you alive. I don't know, I think it's important.

The nice thing about animation, you don't even really have to account for yourself. All of the physical stuff that you work on as an actor, you just throw away.

It's a very odd thing with Hollywood, where you do stand-up, you're good at it, then they go, 'How would you like to be a horrible actor?' Then you say, 'All right, that sounds good. I'll do that.'

You can't perish because of your own feelings; you have to embrace those things as an actor because it's part of your palette.

When I was younger, I was almost too afraid to admit that I wanted to be an actor.

I offer my performance as prayer for someone I've worked with as an actor or someone who has died. The image that comes into my head as I walk to the stage, I offer that performance up for that person.

One of the things you learn as an actor is that human beings are capable of almost anything. I'm sort of in the business of illustrating that fact.

The camera is the slave to the actor.

What I've learned in my career as an actor is that you're only as good as your collaborators. The process is many things, but it is wholly collaborative, particularly with something like 'Westworld,' which is a 10-episode-per-season gig, and we're just now on the 7th episode.

Any actor is happy to be involved with something that's challenging, controversial, and not easily palatable. Things that are too dumbed down or easy to swallow are uninteresting... It's good when people have such a polarizing response.

I am truly at my happiest not when I am writing an aria for an actor or making a grand political or social point. I am at my happiest when I've figured out a fun way for somebody to slip on a banana peel.