Quotes About Actors

Obviously, with 'The Room,' I wasn't on set thinking 'I'm going to be Daniel Day Lewis' playing Mark, but explaining how I even got involved in the movie shows how we all get stuck in situations as actors - and this one ended up being one of the craziest.

I think we all want to find the love of our life and live our fantasies. What art student hasn't used his art to get girls? What journalists or actors haven't used their craft as well? It's a very human instinct to pursue.

The movies that I did in the '80s were either good or bad, but I never was oppressed with any feeling - I mean, I thought it was ridiculous to play high school or college students when I was 30. But at the same time, that was really done then.

I started doing documentaries in the first place because of the war. I always wanted to do feature films, and I studied directing when the war started, so I was working with actors before, in film and in theater. So I think it's easy to work with actors when you have a script that is clear, when they know what and why they are doing it.

I never went to school for directing. I studied theater with a director. I followed plays to see how a director would talk to the actors. I tried to make my own school.

I originally wanted to be an opera singer. I studied classical voice at the University of Washington but soon realised I didn't have the instrument or the discipline. The road for opera singers is more difficult than for actors.

I've studied Charlie Chaplin for years. I've studied Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, all of them. I don't play around. This is not a game.

A lot of actors said they hated the studio system, but I loved it. It was like a college; it was a great place to learn.

I had a really good time working with Jim Cameron. A lot of people didn't, but I did as I got on with him really quite well. For a director who spends most of his time looking down a lens or in the digitisation studio or working out some graphics, he is actually very good with actors.

We were all ruled by the studio system. I signed a contract for seven years.

It's the formulaic studio movies the make money, and when they do, the actors in them are automatically movie stars.

There wasn't an episode of 'Will & Grace' that didn't begin with my voice saying, 'Will & Grace' is taped before a live studio audience.

Hollywood studios bury that stuff - actors who punch directors in the face and try to run producers over with cars - insanity, criminal behavior. But the studios are invested in that star, they can't have that person's name dirtied up.

I always hated when the studios just kind of said that anybody can act. You look at people like Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda - and I'm just talking about the male actors - there aren't a lot who can act. It's a very special talent, and I wish it were recognized as a very special talent.

I don't have a stack of scripts that, when I get home, studios are clamoring, saying, 'Has Bob read ours yet?'

You knew everybody at all the studios and you saw them often.

The actors are in control, getting outrageous amounts of money. The reason they're getting this kind of money is because the studios don't know what else to do. They don't have a clue about what to do except to pay an actor a lot of money.

We were like a stock company at Warners. We didn't know any of the stars from the other studios.

Television studios bet the farm on reality shows, where they didn't need any actors and movie studios had no plans for any quality movies that required the presence of me.

The fact is that HBO is doing the kind of films and the kind of stories that the movie industry used to do. You look at a lot of the specialty sections of studios that have gone under... and there's no doubt in my mind why filmmakers and screenwriters and actors are ending up at a place like HBO. They do it better than anybody.

Studios tend to approach popular actors because they want to grab eyeballs. When it comes to the south actors, this may work because they cater to a different kind of audience, and it might make a difference there. However, in the Hindi film space, having a famous name only works in specific cases.

I've never encountered homophobia in casting from the studios or networks - not once, not ever. Where you encounter it is with the agents and the managers, they're the ones who have an outdated notion of the price an actor might pay if it's discovered that they're LGBTQ.

I'm always studying actors and movies. You can never not do your homework.

All directors are different. Certainly, the directors that I respond to the most are guys that figure it out by doing it, not by thinking or studying. Also, the kind of actor that I think I am - I learned about theater doing theater, not studying theater. I think that traditional school can be great, but also it can stifle original thought.