Top 22 Eric Stoltz Quotes

I realize I’m a very lucky man. I love what I do, I love films, TV and theater, and the fact that I’m able to make a living at it staggers me.

I studied piano for many years, and I still play. I’m a complete amateur, and I wouldn’t consider myself very good at all, but I enjoy it.

There’s a strange sense of accomplishment in making an independent film. Everything’s against you; there’s no time, and even less money – you bring a bottle of glue, chip in twenty bucks, and hope you all make it through the day. If you manage to finish it and it actually turns out to be pretty good, it’s thrilling.

Things happen to everybody in the course of a lifetime. Relationships end, people die, tragedy befalls everyone. So everyone has this wealth of experience, and the older you are the more you have to draw on.

My parents moved to American Samoa when I was three or four years old. My dad was principal of a high school there. It was idyllic for a kid. I had a whole island for a backyard. I lived there until I was eight years old and we moved to Santa Barbara.

I can count on one hand the directors who actually directed me.

The ’80s were a time of technical wonder in filmmaking; unfortunately, some colleges didn’t integrate their film and theater departments – so you had actors who were afraid of the camera, and directors who couldn’t talk to the actors.

I try to read all news sources – not just CNN or FOX, but worldwide papers and journals, to get opinions from every end of the spectrum – and then I like to try to find out the cut and dried facts – and go from there.

I think violence, cynicism, brutality and fashion are the staples of our diet. I think in the grand history of story-telling, going back to people sitting around fires, the dark side of human nature has always been very important. Movies are part of that tradition.

I’ll be directing some more ‘Private Practice’ episodes when we wrap ‘Caprica.’

I’m interested in doing movies I wouldn’t normally be interested in doing.

I’ve been pretty lucky – or slothful – in that I’ve never been a ‘career builder.’ I take the jobs that come along that feel right, and that’s left me fairly open to all genres, really. But with ‘Caprica,’ the complex, dark and very smart script was the draw.

You know, you grow up with the image of John Travolta being super cool – ‘Saturday Night Fever,’ Brian De Palma, handsome young god… he, in reality, is a very silly man. And I mean that in a good way. He’ll walk around the set talking in little weird voices, making people laugh.

It seems that whatever we do is somehow beyond reproach – murder, rape, drunk driving – as long as we go on a TV show and apologize.

My perfect day is constantly changing. Right now, it would be to lie around in a hammock reading with a portable phone and a table of food next to it. I would spend all day there. And that’s all that I can possibly come up with on the spur of the moment.

I have several dogs and several cats who aren’t really mine. In fact, they think that I am theirs. I’d like to have some goats and chickens, but I travel around too much.

I’ve been directing more and more the last few years, I find it an enjoyable challenge.

I can relate to historical characters or imaginary ones. It doesn’t matter if a story takes place in the future or in the present, as long as the story is compelling.

Recently I was directing an episode of ‘Glee’ and I lost my cell phone – and I didn’t have time to buy a new one for three weeks. Well, the first few days I was anxious as hell, suffered the delirium tremens, didn’t think I could make it through, etc. Then something kind of curious happened – I began to feel great.

Let’s not kid ourselves here, robots already run most of our world. We’ll be their butlers soon enough.

To this day I over prepare. I draw storyboards for every scene – chicken scratches so crude that they amuse and horrify the crew. I send out shot lists, act out the scenes, and search for a theme that I can relate to. It’s my favorite time of the process.

Directing has only increased my admiration and respect for what it is that actors do.