Quotes from William Hurt

It just seems like that because I do a lot of independent films that don't get to the mainstream.

You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people's idea of that mold.

I know what I love about acting - and it's the creative process

Celebrity is a pathological sickness of the culture. Narcissists on screen being consumed by narcissists off-screen.

We get so intellectual that we forget that we're physical creatures.

The thrill of acting is the discovery part, so it all changes, but it has to change in a way that fits what is written. You can't just wander off and get interested in your own tangent.

I grew up in the South Pacific. Basically, my brothers were Guamanian. I spoke words of Guamanian long before I spoke words of English, and so I've seen a lot. You know, I've traveled in places where people don't have the benefits of American life. And so I've seen a lot of stuff.

I was very lucky when I was a kid - I travelled a lot and spent a lot of time in Africa, Asia and Europe. I also chant in Sanskrit.

You get older, and people start passing away. And so if you're lucky - my mom died very young, for instance, and I have friends who died very young - but the point being that, I think if you're awake, you know you're going to pass on. And that the real treasure in life is the long term - relationships that you really value.

Where did I study? I went to P.S. 6. I went to Collegiate, Middlesex, Tufts, Juilliard.

What's really frustrating with movies is the lack of improvement.

I have a way of synthesizing. That's what I would encourage any young person to do: take in the ideas, the conflicts, and the world. Watch and listen and live before you go public.

I have a film I want to direct. Gena Rowlands was going to do it with me a long time ago. It's about an older woman who's running a ranch in the west the old fashioned way.

You cut off the capacity for grief in your life, and you cut off the joy at the same time. They both come up through the same tunnel. You don't have one without the other.

The thing is David is also aware of everything and it's not like you're going somewhere the director is not.

The irony is that the more specific you are in the portrayal of character, the more like other people you are. In the same way, the more you think about how alone you are in this life, you realise how much a brother and sister everyone else is.

Every single second of extra time to work with other actors has definitely always, for me, paid off for the film. For the project. Every single extra heartbeat you could get, mutually considering the scene, was of benefit.

For as privileged an actor as I have been, TV as a standard is short shrift. They have to do it so quickly that they don't stop and take a look. They just shoot. So that's one of the reasons I typically stay away from it. I think art is an act of consideration, and if you're not considering, I don't think you're really doing mankind a favor.

I very much prefer the balance in a scene to standing out and so you have to make a decision.

Being famous is not something that would make me feel successful - unless one was striving for mediocrity.

I need six weeks of rehearsal and women need nine months and it took me 15 years to figure that out

When you are a kid, you are beset by fears, and you think, 'I'll solve the fear by living forever and becoming a movie star.'

I listen to XM radio because I can get so many overseas news stations.

I am just as comfortable in Britain and France as I am in America... but nowhere is perfect.