Quotes from Tony Shalhoub

I started out in the theater when I was a young actor, so I've always tried to move from one medium to the other.

I'm a very sensitive guy!

People change all the time.

You make certain assumptions as a parent. And you kind of think, at a certain point, you've figured things out. And then all of a sudden, that person that you raised and nurtured and thought that you knew is someone else completely.

All I wanted with that film was to represent the possibility that there might be normal people who are Muslim or Arab with the same fears, responsibilities, hopes.

I was one of those people who put too much emphasis on work and career and material possessions, and it took its toll on all my relationships, on my physical health, my emotional and mental health.

'Longtime Companion' was really the first movie that I know of that addressed the problem of AIDS. This was back in the '80s that we did this.

I come from a really big family, my father was a businessman and what he always instilled in us was to be your own boss. My father built up his business, and he was by no means a rich man, but he figured out how to work four-and-a-half days a week.

With what's happened in the world the last three years, it's easier to see why it's become popular again to diminish and revile Arabs and Muslims in American popular culture.

I went to college on the East Coast in Portland, Maine.

I have two daughters.

I am an actor. I try to do different things.

It was really an experience, being my first time directing a movie. The scenes that I was in, Brooke really directed me all the time. And the scenes that both of us were in, Brooke directed those. Come to think of it, Brooke directed most of the scenes.

I still think of myself as a stage actor. When I do film and television I try to implement what I was taught to do in theatre, to try to stretch into characters that are far from myself.

I've been so fortunate throughout my career, when I was doing theater - more theater than anything else - and when I was doing films, that I got a chance just to do a broad range of things.

My father had season tickets to the Packer games, and I have several of those. I have a lot of family that still lives in the Bay Area and in Wisconsin, too. And so, I like to get back as often as I can.

My father came to the U.S. from Lebanon in 1920 when he was 8 without knowing a word of English. He traveled to Green Bay, Wis., married, bought a house, and he and my mom, Helen, raised 10 kids. Everything depended on his one-man business driving a truck.

I don't look as handsome in Men in Black 2 as I did in the first one.

I try to do other characters that are different from Monk, obviously, because I'd like to be remembered for more than just that.

I'm impossible to direct. I couldn't get myself to do anything.

I feel like I was born in the wrong time.

I did some acting in high school and then a little more in college, and it just was the thing that I felt that I wanted to do more than anything else. And then I was fortunate enough to audition for and get into Yale Drama School right after college, and I spent three years there.

Before I did any television or film, I did years and years of theater. Television and film stuff, even though it went on for a good, healthy number of years, almost felt like a diversion from theater.

I get the opportunity to play all different ethnicities and not get stereotyped or locked into one. It's been a tremendous advantage, I think.