Quotes About Ambition

I have been getting proposals to play the lead from a long time but I rebuffed those offers. I wanted to work in a storyline that has scope for me.

I'm still not sure I want to be a writer. I think of myself as a storyteller more.

I didn't know anybody who was a filmmaker - there was no film industry where I grew up. I never knew what a director really did until I was in high school and I started reading up about it. I've always loved films, and I always felt like a storyteller.

I wanted to do what I was seeing Dorothy Dandridge doing, what I saw Marilyn Monroe do, what I saw Bette Davis do. I wanted to do that: to tell stories. I wanted to make people laugh, make people cry. I wanted to be a storyteller.

I want to make a period film, I want to make a film set in another country. I want to make a foreign film. I want to make everything eventually. I am a storyteller. I have many stories to tell.

The more a character wants and the less a character has the ability to get what they want, the more you have an endless fuel for storytelling in comedy.

I've set the bar quite high in terms of storytelling.

Robert Bolt's storytelling is the kind that I grew up with and aspired to.

As filmmakers, we love ambitious storytelling; it's one of the reasons we pushed to do 'Civil War.' We want to be as ambitious in scope as we possibly can.

I grew up with sports, but I was definitely not good enough to become a professional athlete - I just loved the storytelling aspect of it.

I was doing a late-night round as a milkman in 1978 when I heard a radio DJ announce that he was leaving. I marched straight to the radio station and told them I could do better. For some reason, they gave me a go.

At my first Olympics, I didn't have a contract, and I wasn't making any money. After my first Olympics, I was working at 24 Hour Fitness at the front desk. I would go to practice in the morning, run home, shower, grab some food and then go straight to work. I didn't get off of work until 10 or 11 o'clock at night.

I always had ambition. I always knew I was going to go to college. I could party and do that stuff, but I always got straight A's and a 4.0 and all that.

I don't think I'm generous enough to be the straight guy. I sort of make my own way and make my own statement. Do I mind pushing myself forward? Not at all.

Sometimes with people I know, they're playing the hunky action guy and there's resistance to them coming out because it's so connected to straight masculinity. There's a plastic kind of movie star who has a very short shelf with very small kind of ambition. I see that but I still don't agree with it.

It's important to be dedicated and enthusiastic when you're starting a career. It might take a long time to get established and the money won't flow in straight away.

My personality was always such that I always look straight forward, never behind or to the side.

I was very smart in school. I had straight As and was going to graduate high school at 16 and start college. My dad wanted me to be a lawyer because I was very opinionated.

Here's the thing, back in the day, a lot of guys would make fun of me, that I would sing and dance, that I was a cheerleader. But I kept my head on straight. I had goals.

I remember moving out to L.A. straight after college and just starting to try to write scripts and trying to get stuff off the ground.

I'm not a full-fledged producer, but I can be one if I want to really spend my time on straight being a producer.

Setting goals can blind you to opportunities. You might be trying to get to point C. When opportunity B comes, you don't even look at it because you're going straight to C.

As soon as one project is finished I like to go straight on to something else.

My dad, in particular, was adamant that I should finish my education. He encouraged me to go to Oxford, for instance, and I rather doubt I'd have gone if he hadn't. I would have gone straight back to L.A. and tried to start my career.