Quotes from John C. Reilly

I don't mind doing scripted material. It's actually kind of a relief, because improvising is a little bit like screenwriting on your feet.

Whatever the reasons that I turn things down, I'm always happy when there's a good result, and I can enjoy it as a movie, you know? I don't feel like, 'Oh man, that was really good. I should have done it.' You have to make the decisions you have to make, whether it has to do with your family or repeating a character or whatever it is.

I had [at school] my own little posse of people that all felt weird together so it wasn't so lonely.

I love that people can't place me. They don't know my name. That's 'mission accomplished' in my world.

People say, 'Don't you get tired of people coming up to you all the time?' But what's wrong with strangers saying they love you?

For a while I had a blues band in L.A., but I realized I was too optimistic to play the blues. I did not have the misery in my heart that the blues required.

I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll.

You were there all day long, 12 hours a day. So there was none of this, 'I'm going back to my trailer, my trailer's bigger than your trailer,' that kind of Hollywood nonsense.

I don't know who I am, to tell you the truth.

I did a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, and his skill level was eons ahead of mine. It was really more like an abattoir - he just slaughtered my character over and over again.

I try to take things that challenge me either physically or mentally, or I have to learn a new skill.

It's true that the skills required to be a conman are the same as those required for being an actor. Though those skills are in the service of something a bit more noble with acting, I hope.

I love card games, and I've always loved board games and stuff like that as a kid, and I think it's that part of your brain that's engaged in con movies. It's like this 'Who's outsmarting whom?'

I would love to do a western. I would love to play an explorer. That is always something that has really captured my imagination since I was a kid, like James Cook or Magellan or Earnest Shackleton.

Most boys' first hero is their father. That was definitely true of my dad. He was a proud Irish American and he taught me a lot about ethics and responsibility. He also introduced me to a lot of wonderful folk music.

Young people can be annoying, let's face it. But they can also be really refreshing to be around and full of enthusiasm.

The thing I tried to remember when I was younger was 'Do something that's at least as good, if not better, than the last thing you did.' So I started with Brian De Palma and Sean Penn. I had a pretty high bar to start with.

I was more like a middle child. My youngest brother was the baby, so he got all the attention that the baby gets. And my older brothers were getting into so much trouble that I was left in the middle, doing plays. I was up to no good, but my mother didn't know it!

Here's the thing, with comedy - and I learned this from Will Ferrell - you can't be ashamed. If you're doing comedy, you have to fully commit to the joke. Shame is not part of it. If you act shy or uncomfortable about your body, that makes the audience shy and uncomfortable. And in a comedy you just want them to loosen up and laugh.

The truth is that filmmaking is not really an actor's medium; it's really a director's medium, so all I can really control is the character that I'm playing. So I try to look for characters that are interesting and engaging and different than what I've done before and hopefully it becomes a good movie.

I'm alienated from this world because its weird and I don't want to be a part of it. I want to be part of the people that are more imaginative and crazy.

If people want to see me in comedies, that's fine with me.

Oh, absolutely, it felt more serious than your typical job. One of the things that got us through how difficult the shooting actually was was that we are telling a real story.

I give as much as I can, and it's up to someone else to turn it into a movie. Good luck to you!