Quotes from Jason Robards

'Iceman' covers a bigger scope than 'Long Day's Journey.' But they're both fabulous pieces of work. 'Iceman' is like a symphony. It's got all the movements, all these different voices. 'Long Day's Journey' is more like a beautiful string quartet.

I love the theater because it's alive. It's a beginning, a middle and an end, and it begins a life.

When I was little, my father was one of the biggest names in Hollywood. Suddenly - and how it happened to him was always a great mystery to me - he wasn't a star anymore; he was on the fringe. From the time I was 14, I was always conscious of a sense of worry, of terrific insecurity - agents, phony talk, the waits for the phone to ring.

As a baseball player, you know the commodity you're selling, but with acting, you wonder, 'What the hell am I doing that is so hot?'

I almost failed one drama course. All the actors talked in phony accents. It shocked me. I went out for track instead.

I had a choice whether to live or die, and I chose to live.

That's what interests me about film: directing.

Eugene O'Neil is always exploring our want to love but can't get it out there.

I've played all kinds of TV roles, from cowboys to fathers of teenagers. It's helped me a lot. Of course, I was very lucky to have had good directors.

I used to just do movies for alimony purposes, between plays.

I sort of go with the flow of what's happening on the set.

The theater has kept me alive, and it's allowed me to work at my craft.

An actor doesn't change thought, theme, or mood unless the character does, and the character only does it within the words of the play.

Projection of sound gives the stage a life different from real life. As actors and interpretive artists, we must not only be able to know the attitude of the script, we must also make ourselves heard - without amplification.

Once you're on, nobody can say, 'Cut it.' You're out there on your own, and there's always that thrill of a real live audience.

I don't want actors reasoning with me about 'motivation' and all that bull.

It's 90 percent rejection, being an actor.

When you act, you take on the attitudes and the emotions of others. There has to be a release. Most often done in conviviality. That's why there are clubs like the Players, the Friars - in London, the Garrick.

I always wanted to act. To be with my friends. To share something with the audience about the human condition.

We grow each day or don't grow. Go the other way. We're a different person all the time. The human being is something happening differently every day. That's the challenge of doing a play: using your instrument to learn and to pull out these things.

To be true to a play, you can't add something that takes away from the author's intent.

My father has the most tremendous personality and wonderful looks - he looks like Fredric March.

Any actor worth his salt is looking for truth, the core of truth of the particular situation he is portraying, of that play. The playwright, the actors and the audience, that's what we're all there seeking. When it's working, time is destroyed. Sometimes 'Moon,' a play of four hours, would go by in a snap of the fingers.

It was 1939. There was no money or jobs around. I did my parents a favor and joined the Navy.