Quotes About Acting

I'm Italian. I wouldn't know how to play a Jew.

'Jewel in the Crown' is the biggest exposure I've ever had on television.

I am Irish as a person, but I feel Jewish as an actor.

Well, I play Jews and parrots. Parrots are how I've branched out.

Well, who better to play Nazis than we Jews?

I'm not saying Jews should only play Jews... I personally think actors should be allowed to act.

I enjoyed 'Roswell' a lot, and I had a lot of fun playing Jim Valenti. I had never done a show that lasted as long as that - that one lasted three years.

I knew what kind of actor I was going to be, and I looked for inspiration to people like Alec Guinness, Cyril Cusack, Timothy Spall and Jim Broadbent. I looked at them and thought, 'They play human beings as they really are.'

I feel like Jim Carrey is probably the closest thing to a true physical comedian that we have working today.

If you have the opportunity to watch Nathan Fillion or Jim Carrey do a scene, it's like getting a Ph.D. in acting.

I would love to be in a Jimmy McGovern drama on TV, but there is no way he would ever ask me unless it would be to play a lawyer or something.

With acting, you have to become someone else. That's the fun part of it for me - to step outside of yourself and become a character. I guess being Jimmy Cliff is a little bit of a character, too.

As an actor just learning the craft, you literally do a scene with Jimmy Gandolfini, and you walk away a better actor.

Once I got over my initial butterflies, being in the same room and doing a scene with Jimmy Caan was great. I never backed down for one second against him. I loved it. I love those moments. Working with people like that is the greatest joy you can get as an actor.

I would hope that people didn't think I was anything like Joan! It's very hard for me because Joan says such cruel things all the time. It sort of makes me cringe every time I read them because I think, 'Who could be so horrible?' To be able to deliver those lines and do them with a coolness, yet still make her likable, is a bit of a challenge.

I'd love to have played Joan of Arc. That would have been amazing.

I'd love to play St. Joan or Hamlet, and hopefully I will.

To be playing Joan Crawford is as good as it gets.

Acting is the hardest job in the entire world. By far. Harder than ditch digging.

For me, acting is not a job. It is something I love. I don't do these things for awards or rewards. I do them because I love challenges.

The hardest part of my job, daily, is to not laugh while we shoot.

I have done hard jobs in the past, and acting isn't one of them.

I know I can act. There aren't too many other jobs I know how to do.

A young actor once asked me, What do you do between jobs? I said, Hobbies, hobbies, and more hobbies.