Actors Quotes - Page 153

I've never done a [Berthold] Brecht. In the 1960s when the Berliner Ensemble came over [to England] with Helene Weigel [Brecht's second wife], I saw all the Berlin actors. It was an amazing time, very exciting early 1960s.

I like young actors because they're so unspoiled, not like some of those actors who are about half an hour into their fifteen minutes of fame by the time they get to me.

I don't have actor training, myself.

It's tough being an actor making music, because even I have a knee-jerk reaction to that.

If you cast the picture correctly, you have a whole lot of leeway. You can make mistakes in other aspects but pull it off with the right actors.

I had always been interested in screenwriting, ever since I could write things down as a child. Obviously, I started as an actor, professionally, but screenwriting was always something that I had a great interest in.

I just love the process of working with other actors.

I love these movies where it's just about the film. You don't have my face on the poster. It's all about the movie. I like that.

No, actors go out with actresses as a form of self-flagellation.

You scratch a preacher a little bit, and you'll get an actor.

I've always called myself a writer/performer, not an actor because I basically write what I perform.

On movies, I like to involve the cast in the writing of the script. I like to have a rehearsal period, after which I do the last draft, which gives me a chance to incorporate anything the actors have come up with during the rehearsal period, so I'm very inclusive as a writer.

I have a love factor with the minorities.

John Barrymore was a serious actor who did a great deal of research for all his parts, until, I guess, he was around 50. Then he started drinking heavily . . . So he drank himself to death. It took him 10 years.

There's always down time when you're an actor, especially a character actor.

I'm not of the manor born; I've never felt entitled in that way. I just came to Hollywood to be an actor. All that lifestyle stuff is something to be managed.

I was thinking maybe about being a lawyer. I realized I was interested in becoming a priest at one point. I was just interested in stuff where I could do something I really believed in. And then, I realized if I become an actor, I don't have to choose. I get to do everything. It's worked out so far. But what I really want to do is direct.

I hear actors complain about being stereotyped, and a lot of the time, you have yourself to blame. Just don't take the part if you feel like it's a stereotypical part for you. You have control over your life. We don't have the old studio system, where you have to do what they tell you.

That's one of the difficult things of being an actor that I'm still not used to. You have to go, you have to show up at these places where you know nobody, and sometimes with really impressive, high stakes people like Roman Polanski.

When actors are being defensive and defending their position, that is when you get less than good acting.

I think, at the end of the day, if youre a good actor, then youre a good actor.

I trust the [series] writers when I'm filming, because it's interesting for me to go in every week and see what's going to happen, and the challenge for me as the actor is to make it work.

An actor should take lessons from a painter and a sculptor.

I knew from the time I could walk that I wanted to be an actor.

There are a lot of times where actors can be a little precious sometimes, and then it's difficult to put them in a situation where there is true hardship.