Words matter. These are the best Walter Matthau Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Sometimes it takes me six months before I find out what a line means, even if the writing is superficial… To do a play right, really, I’d like to take two years of rehearsal. You study the character by living with him.
Doing a movie is like eating five hundred canapes at a cocktail party – you’re never really full. You don’t feel as though you’ve eaten a meal, and yet you can’t eat any more.
I was playing Russell Long, the senator from Louisiana. I had 12 speech teachers watching me. All the other passengers on the airplane were speech teachers, and every time I got it wrong, one of the speech teachers would jump up and correct it.
I lay 11-10 because I know the bookie needs that 5 percent that I give him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to make a living and go down to Florida with his family.
I still think I’m 28. I’m 73. I think I’m 28, though, except that I won’t get into a fight with anybody because I just had a pacemaker put in.
Doing a good play on the stage is like eating a good meal at home – assuming your wife is a great cook or that she’s hired a great cook.
People say, ‘When are you going to do serious stuff?’ I look at them as though they were crazy. My serious stuff is my comedy. That’s how I make my points.
Perfection, to me ,means you spend much too much time trying to be perfect.
The only guy that was ever affected by climactic conditions in his acting was Kirk Douglas. He did a superb job in ‘Lonely Are the Brave’ because we were shooting that picture up at about 12,000 feet, and the rarefied atmosphere sapped him of any energy or strength that he had. That was his best performance.
Every actor looks all his life for a part that will combine his talents with his personality… ‘The Odd Couple’ was mine. That was the plutonium I needed. It all started happening after that.
Of course I gamble, to make the games interesting. But five hundred dollars a game, tops. Or sometimes a thousand. No heart attack bets.
If you’re sitting around and doing Chekhov and the cat walks in, you must pay attention to the cat. You cannot continue the dialogue of Chekhov without including the cat. So on live television, we’d automatically go into ad-lib gear.
We’re writing a book together. She just finished one. Did you read it? Among the Porcupines?
I wanted to be a pharmacist. I liked the way our local pharmacist was always dressed in a nice white coat; he looked very calm, you’d give him money, and he’d give you something that you wanted to buy.
It’s very easy to live here. You’re anonymous here. Nobody knows who you are.
