Quotes from James Cromwell

I was going to design sports cars, but my father came to my college to visit me. At the time he was making a picture in Sweden and he took me there with him. I got to see Ingmar Bergman's company and I thought, 'Gee, filmmaking is a lot more fun than sports cars,' so I decided to follow him and go into acting.

All of them - my father, mother, step-mother, and grandmother - were all wonderful actors and performers and they are an inspiration to me, both in their craft and in their humanity.

The attitude we have towards our personal pets as opposed to the animals that suffer under the factory farm is hypocritical and delusional.

We don't need to eat anyone who would run, swim, or fly away if he could.

When I did 'Babe' I wanted to talk about animal rights without going through some convoluted justifications about using animal products.

Often we're recreating what we think we're supposed to be as human beings. What we've been told we're supposed to be, instead of who we authentically are. The key about the creation of full self-expression is to be authentically who you are, to project that.

I don't look like a leading man, whatever they look like. It's changing a little.

A vital film that needed to be made at this point in history and has been made magnificently.

The health of the planet is at stake, because the cruelty and the waste that accompanies the slaughter of billions of animals each year literally infects us all. We could consume healthy plant-based food produced at almost infinitely less cost. What does that say, really, about us and what we're doing... to animals and to ourselves?

I have a film called 'A Lonely Place For Dying,' which is the most watched film on the Internet, over 3 million hits, more than any of Hollywood's films.

I don't study films particularly. I plan to direct, but I'm not watching film - I watch the entire film to see how the story goes, but I don't say, 'Oh, so he does a slow pan here, or he pulls here, watch the crane shot, or look at the composition,' because it's got to be my eye.

I think the obligation of an artist is to make a difference in the world. That is what matters most to me. I think that artists are the leaders of the world because they do not have a connection to the industrial complex, the day-to-day short-term survival that most people are involved with.

I was so moved by the intelligence,sense of fun and personalities of the animals I worked with on Babe that by the end of the film I was a vegetarian.

I always change my words in everything I do. I make the language fit, because I know the character from the inside out. Often character actors are not in a position to do that, but I do it. I don't change any cue and I never change anybody else's lines, but I make my own words fit my mouth.

There is something intrinsically, systemically wrong with white, western culture, and if we don't fix it, it won't continue.

My definition of a character actor is - they never get the girl.

My first films were comedy, 'Murder By Death,' and 'The Cheap Detective.' But now they won't think of me as a comedian. Now, they think of me as a bad guy, and I can't do comedy.

What is magnificent about humans is when they decide to turn and stand. If they respond with non-violence on principle and hold their ground, they are really magnificent.

During the run up to the Iraq War, Mike Farrell and I did get on television kind of frequently, but then they saw that that didn't work. They really couldn't bait us into being stupid, so they stopped. You know the mainstream media, corporate media, avoids ever giving anyone who has anything to say a platform, if they can possibly help it.

Pets are humanizing. They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life.

But if you really want to learn about life, get a cat. The way I think people should relate to animals is with a cat. Because the world is his.

The Academy Awards were basically created by the industry to promote pictures. They weren't really to acknowledge the performances. Then it became sort of this a great popularity contest and now, it's an incredible show and it's seen all over the world.

I drove through the stockyards of Texas on a motorcycle. It doesn't let you escape what surrounds you and what it smells like and feels like - and what hit me was the realization that something that was alive and had feelings will suffer before a piece of it is placed on our plates.

'Jamie' is what my mother gave me, and that takes the onus off of being big. Somebody thinks, 'Oh, Jamie - how threatening can he be?'