Quotes from Bryan Cranston

As a director you come in and tell the actors how good they are.

We've been trained since kindergarten: Be nice, be kind, share, put on a smile. So we're conditioned to squash our natural selfish instincts, and that's the right thing for society.

When I was a kid there were a very select few channels - programmes had to have more of a large appeal and they just didn't offer very much. Now you have a situation where the television world has expanded and there's hundreds of channels.

Every experience feeds an actor, and I've learned that depression is all around us.

Given the right set of circumstances any one of us could become dangerous - so why not show that in our programmes?

I have talked to stunt drivers all my life, 32 years of talking to stunt drivers. There's a craziness to them.

The only thing that we as actors really can control is to be able to say 'yes' or 'no' to the material.

I'm telling you, until I shaved my head, I never realized how much heat is lost through the top of the head. I walk out in winter and it feels like I have an ice pack on my head. Unbelievable.

I wish Americans thought more like Europeans when it comes to money and work. They take time off, they do what they love. We think work is the most valued commodity. Really the most valued commodity is time.

I admit, I do a lot of projects, but it's because I'm in a position now where I'm reading a lot more scripts and plays and things, and I'm really listening to offers and trying to think what I want to do at any given time.

If you're a person who complains about everything all the time, then you're just the boy who cried 'wolf.' But if you do it on occasion and about the right reasons, then people listen.

I don't have spare time.

When you're an actor in grade school, high school, college, whatever, you start to realize what you're really good at, what you're kinda good at, what you're okay at, and you start to compartmentalize. But if you know yourself and what you're capable of, it's just a matter of opportunity.

Being a day player, period, is one of the hardest things you can do as an actor.

My goal has always been to be a working actor.

Being from a divorced family almost felt like a scarlet letter at times. And I denied it for a long time.

Every time you start a project, you're hopeful that the critics receive it warmly.

You get addicted to emotions. Our endorphins kick in and it's like a high. On the low end you might love roller coasters. On the high end you might be a bank robber or something.

The TV business is like the produce section of the market. Today everything is fresh and glistening and firm. And tomorrow, when they find a bruise on you, they toss you out.

Take a chance. Take a risk. Find that passion and rekindle it. Fall in love all over again. It's really worth it.

The imagination is part of the arsenal that actors draw from.

My dear friend Aaron Paul. I love you so much.

Actors are inherently self-centered.

There's so many things that can go wrong in the execution of a project like a television show or a movie, so many little elements, any number of things, all the way to marketing - like they could market it poorly and nobody finds it and down it goes.