You're never really playing yourself. You're always acting. It's an illusion that you're really playing yourself. The only time I'm playing myself is when I'm at home!
It's all about commerce. Movies are not made like paintings, where you can make them for free and put them at the side. Movies are supposed to make money.
Making art is an act of courage. Do you know who said that?
When you're going over periods of your life, you remember certain things, certain events, certain people that you've forgotten. You've forgotten certain lessons or people you were very close to, and then you haven't seen them in a while. I think if you can go through life with the correct regrets, then looking back on it, like I did, a certain portion of my life is pretty enjoyable. All my regrets are ones that I'd like to keep.
Wanting to work is a luxury; having to work is not. If you're an artist, an actor, and you don't have to work, then you do work that you wanna do.
It is hard to look back and talk about a set of disjointed experiences as though they were part of one smooth progression.
The allure of Hollywood is huge when you don't know anything. You don't know the knives behind the smiles.
Wanting to work is a luxury; having to work is not.
When you're starting out as an actor, there isn't much food around. I was lucky to have a hit pretty early on. I didn't starve too long.
Typecasting is a good thing. It's good to be known for what you do.
You can tell when you're in a hit.
I don't believe in having to show anybody anything. I just do my work. You know, making a living as an actor is such a rarity on earth. It's like making a living as a painter. So I look at different opportunities in the same way as Jack Nicholson, who said once, "Keep popping up in different holes. That's what you want to do: Just keep popping up in different holes." That made a lot of sense to me.
Unless you're Jack Lemmon or Cary Grant, there are few guys who can do comedy and drama.
There are 100,000 actors in the Screen Actors Guild. Only 2,000 of them make more than $75,000 a year.
Underneath all the skin, we're all the same.
The worst professional advice I've received. "If you were the last person on earth, I would never choose you to be a movie star."
If you put down a list of jobs, doctor, lawyer, janitor, teacher or movie star, everybody would pick the movie star. And why? So you could lie around the pool, drink margaritas and send money to your parents. So that's what I did.
I'm lucky to be in this business. I'm very grateful.
A career is a series of ups and downs, of comebacks.
I'm not going to say, I'm an actor and I'm changing the world. Who cares?
It's good Xerox is known for its copying machines, and it's good Jim Carrey is known for comedy.
I love the fame and the money and the power. You have to keep working to have that.
From 1980 to 1990, I shot more films than any other actor in the Screen Actors Guild, apart from Gene Hackman.
For 15 years I did two to three movies a year, sometimes four. I didn't get to spend time building my personal life.
I'm somebody who's really contributed to culture. Popular culture.
