Quotes from J. K. Simmons

When we were shooting 'Oz,' my wife was doing 'Beauty and the Beast' on Broadway, singing and dancing. It was an interesting dichotomy in our house.

I had many, many mentors that I worked with. Music teachers, choir directors, directors in summer stock or in regional theater. You know, people I was able to work with repeatedly and learn from who were really sort of appropriate people for me to work with at a given time in my development as an actor.

Teaching is in my blood.

On 'Oz' one day, I got a chunk of a camera embedded in my head, and I was passed out on the floor geysering blood while the set medic stood over me, freaking out. No help whatsoever. I ended up going to the ER and getting nine stitches in my head - real Frankenstein stitches.

If you're doing a prison show, HBO is the absolute best place in the world to be doing that because you're not going to have to do all that, you know, 'Prison Break' stuff where you can't really behave and speak like people do in a maximum-security prison.

I did Broadway shows. And I started realizing that this is actually how I'm going to make my living. So maybe I should try to do television and film and make a better living and get an occasional residual check so I can pay a mortgage someday.

My general philosophy of playing bad guys, which I've sort of done, you know, half the time is, you know, very few people who we view as bad guys get out of bed and think, 'What evil, terrible thing am I going to do today?' Most people see their motivations as justified - as, you know, justifying whatever they do.

I completely agree with feeling the need for or the benefits of being pushed and of being directed on a project and collaborating.

Fortunately, for the first 20 years in my career, I didn't have any other responsibilities outside of myself. I didn't have a wife and kids, so I could afford to sort of barely scrape by, to do theater.

If you are lucky enough to have a parent or two alive on this planet, call them. Don't text; don't e-mail. Call them on the phone.

I would like to thank the 49 actors who appear on screen in 'Whiplash' for realizing Damien Chazelle's vision so beautifully.

The first thing I did that was at all in the public eye, other than on stage, was 'Oz,' in which I played the head of the Aryan Brotherhood in a maximum-security prison.

My overall quest is always to do something that's somehow different from whatever it is that I just got done doing. If that can include occasionally playing an older guy who has a romantic side and a romantic relationship, than that's a real treat.

We're raising a generation of kids who are being overly praised for incredibly minor accomplishments. I think it's counter-productive.

I would like to find, or I would like a part to come to me that is like the part that Dennis Franz was fortunate to be able to play on 'NYPD Blue,' a sort of similar-looking actor to me, a generic, bald white guy who you would often think of as playing the authority figure. But he was the disgruntled middle-man. That would be a fun character.

I'd always had the concern that being in commercials would affect my credibility when I was getting started as a TV and film actor.

I'm just glad to be able to work.

If the awards buzz is happening, and it's coming from critics and people in the business and all of that, that's only more good news.

Sometimes I read a really good script, and I just know that it's not a good fit.

When I read the script and saw the jazz music setting, and when I read the name of the filmmaker was Damien Chazelle, I immediately got this mental image of Antoine Fuqua.

I've had a contemptuous relationship with authority throughout my life. I found myself at odds with authority, and I'm disdainful of blind authority.

When I go back to New York all these years later, I'll walk down Seventh Avenue, and I'll hear, 'Yo, Oz!' In New York, I get recognized for that all the time.

Things heal. Bad stuff happens, but you go on. Life takes care of it.

My understanding, from what I've learned so far about Commissioner Gordon, is that he's the older guy with the mustache who relates with our hero in a certain way.