Quotes from James Ransone

The scariest movies, to me, are like Michael Haneke's 'Amour.'

I still wrestle with the catharsis of acting. I don't end up playing a lot of likable characters, so I find myself living in a lot of unlikable skin. As a result of that I don't always feel good.

A lot of my world-view is formed by the places I've been.

I can usually play polarizing characters.

Baltimore breeds a really specific type of weirdo. Animal Collective is from Baltimore. Dan Deacon, John Waters. There's a through line of weirdness and a hard edge that I see when I meet people from that area.

There is no external means, whether it's my career, or money or house or a wife or anything, that is going to set me right.

I don't end up playing a lot of likable characters, so I find myself living in a lot of unlikable skin. As a result of that, I don't always feel good. I get a lot more catharsis from taking pictures or painting or making short films.

The characters I play always seem eerily appropriate to where I am in my personal life at the time, and if they're not, there always tends to be this notion that I should be learning something to apply to my own life from these people.

'Generation Kill' was not a very glamorous shoot. For all intents and purposes, it was low budget, and all the money they had went to what you see on the screen.

Idris Elba saved my butt in a point in my career that he can do whatever he wants, and I will back his decision no matter what. He got me one of my first pretty big studio gigs, and we had never worked together... It was a time in my life where I really needed it. So whatever Idris wants to do, I'm down with.

I think all art - if it's good - is a result of really trying to create something that you can't put into words. Where language ends is where good art begins.

I'm friends with a lot of Brits, and they tell me when they're over here what a huge phenomenon 'The Wire' has become. Some things just attain critical mass after they're already dead and buried, and I don't know why it was the case with 'The Wire'.

I just auditioned for 'The Wire' like I just auditioned for any other job.

Anyone who lives like a modern aristocracy, the last thing they exhibit is a sense of gratitude. Me, I'm very fortunate.

I like female directors that gravitate toward masculine things. I think the danger of a male director is the over-fetishization of the masculinity.

Corporate greed in New York won. It suffocated anything interesting out of the city.

Music is a very, very powerful tool that filmmakers use to sway people into emotions that they intend you to feel.

There's a bunch of cities I'm not crazy about, but I love Chicago. I love the musical history - the mid-'90s indie rock scene, Chicago house music. It's a great town.

Animals are a continuous source of inspiration and wonder to me. I would love to play a dog.

I always make this comparison between Bob Dylan and David Simon. Not in the most flattering way possible - these two intellectual Jews who totally identify with the black man's struggle!

Sometimes actresses are just insane.

Drama is easy to fool people with, but you can't trick people into laughing.

There used to be a period of time when you'd shoot big studio movies where you would shoot a couple of pages a day. For a TV show, you've gotta shoot seven to nine. The schedules are much more compressed.

In my twenties, I was a huge, insane risk-taker.