Quotes on Actors

We have the script, we have the actors, and we're trying to figure out what this is, and you don't know what it is. You have to be open to what it's going to become rather than have this thing that you're trying to get to, which is boring.

My strength is with actors. I think I'm good at working with them to get the best performances, at seeing what it is that they have and that the story needs.

I ain't no movie star, man. I'm a booty star.

I realized this is what God has dealt me, and I should be thankful considering all that's happened to me in my life, but MS caused the movies to stop - stop dead - and I miss it.

I love to see actors' work. I love to surf channels late at night and accidentally run into movies I hadn't seen before. It makes me very proud of the profession.

I got out of the Army - in my world - I came to New York, for instance, when the civil rights movement was just beginning, and that created a certain energy, a certain rumble, a certain impetus for black actors.

And I think, on the other end, there were actors who were not as good as I was, perhaps who could have hung in too, but began to blame everything on race.

Hollywood likes to put actors in boxes, and it likes to put Asian actors in really small boxes.

I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actor, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.

When you work as an actor, you've got to feel safe even in what appears to be the simplest things.

When I started, I was an artist; I wanted to be an artist. I became an actor almost by accident. I acted for fifteen years and tried to produce. I looked for stories that were the story beneath the story that you thought you knew, like 'The Candidate'.

At the end of the day it's got to be a good movie, it's got to be a funny movie, and it's got to make people think, 'Hey, I couldn't have spent my time any better.'

In other words, I wouldn't like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviorally wild, and it's crazy to think of any form where it's just one way.

A star on a movie set is like a time bomb. That bomb has got to be defused so people can approach it without fear.

Because you know, down deep in my heart, when all is said and done, I still live under the illusion that basically people think of me as an up-and-coming young actor.

Mostly what you lose with time, in memory, is the specificity of things, their exact sequence. It all runs together, becomes a watery soup. Portmanteau days, imploded years. Like a bad actor, memory always goes for effect, abjuring motivation, consistency, good sense.

I'm curious about other people. That's the essence of my acting. I'm interested in what it would be like to be you.

I had this sort of idolatry for certain actors who preceded me, people who inspired me, so I'm honored to be that way for young actors.

I say to myself, 'I don't know how to act - and why does anybody want to look at me on-screen anymore?' ... Lots of actors feel that way. What gives you strength is also your weakness - your raging insecurity.

Molly Shannon and I used to always talk about that we really felt strongly that we were comedic actors, that we weren't comedians. You just played things real and the comedy came out of the context.

Music and language are a vital element. We, as actors and directors, offer it to people who want to experience it. Sometimes the actual meaning is less important than the words themselves.