Quotes from Dylan McDermott

My theory about actors is we're all walking milk cartons. Expirations dates everywhere.

Nowadays you really have to pump out that blockbuster in order to have the luxury of getting a body of work, and that's sad because the work suffers. Today everything is based on money. The older actors, they inspire me.

I believe that Ryan Murphy is a genius. His instincts remind me of Andy Warhol. I recently went to the Warhol museum in Pittsburgh, and you can see a lot of echoes of Andy in Ryan's work. Like Andy, Ryan's finger is so on the pulse of culture that he's ahead of culture. Their aesthetic and their vision of the world are very similar.

It's the cable shows that are really the most interesting - 'Mad Men,' 'Breaking Bad,' those shows are really the premiere shows on television right now.

I did a movie with Clint Eastwood and I knew I wasn't going to be able to 'out-man' him.

Yeah, romantic comedies are the hardest movies to make. Maybe one works a year.

To me Polanski is one of the greats in terms of psychological horror. It's just hard to top him because he's so damn good at it.

In the consciousness of the end is the limitation of the moment.

I guess my style is a cross between David Bowie and Clint Eastwood.

Once you understand that someone has Tourette and that they can't help their tics, it takes away the distraction. And you can engage your compassion. You feel for them. You embrace them.

It's hard to find success and it's hard to find hit movies or hit TV shows and to stay relevant. I think it's a very difficult thing for actors, because a lot of us get lost, frankly.

My dad was kind of a pool shark and had a Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin thing going on. I've always been fascinated by the fifties because of him. There was a hip, cool, anything-goes atmosphere back then, but looking good was still a priority.

Style is innate to who I am. My father gave me a picture the other day. I must have been about seven, and I had on wing-tip shoes and some cool pants. I thought, 'Wow!'

Yeah, romantic comedies are the hardest movies to make. Maybe one works a year.

Nowadays you really have to pump out that blockbuster in order to have the luxury of getting a body of work, and that's sad because the work suffers. Today everything is based on money. The older actors, they inspire me.

New York had a big influence on me growing up, and I was really part of the club scene - the Mudd Club and Studio 54. When you're living in New York, you are just bombarded with style, trying to figure out how to be cool and how to feel relaxed at the same time.

It's like, no matter what I do, I always feel like I'm five years old, and I end up in the back of my father's car looking out the window, and nothing has changed in 25 years.

Honestly, I'm cool with everyone, and people pick up on that. I'd say, 'I'm not gay, but it's all good.' It's kind of like going to Paris when you don't know the language some Americans get into trouble over there, but I'm just like, 'Sorry, I don't speak French.'

'Rosemary's Baby' is still one of my favorite movies of all time. The idea of her being impregnated with the devil is just so frightening. I'm actually going to work on a movie in February, called 'Mercy,' from Jason Blum, who produced the 'Paranormal Activity' movies, and there is a similar theme to 'Rosemary's Baby' in the movie.

Much of the time, as an actor, you sit around waiting. Most of your life and career, you're waiting for your agent or your manager to call you.

I like the Polanski stuff more than anything else. Rosemary's Baby is still one of my favorite movies of all time. The idea of her being impregnated with the devil is just so frightening.

As an actor, you always have to reinvent yourself or you end up in the gutter somewhere. It's my job to always change people's minds. I've known that for a long time and I've had to do it.

Most of the time people are aiming so low on television. They're trying to reach that common denominator, especially on network television.

I've tried like hell to make bad movies good, and I can't. Maybe Marlon Brando has been able to do that at times. But even he has a hard time making 'The Appaloosa' a good movie.