I don’t make the best movies in the world, but at times, I do feel like I’m adding something to the cinematic community.
We’re in a world where masculinity, especially with these big spectacle movies, is often pushed by rippling six packs and forcing an image down someone’s throat trying to prove masculinity. Whereas I think true masculinity comes from having a strong sense of self.
I never thought I’d land in pictures with a face like mine.
I mainly listen to the music that’s playing during movies. It can be the theme to ‘Pirates of the Caribbean,’ ‘The Equalizer,’ stuff like that. I like the blend of orchestra with modern instrumentation. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do.
The end of a picture is always an end of a life.
There are so many great actors, but I really have a lot of respect for Johnny Depp. I’ve seen a lot of movies with him in it and, even if it’s a film that wasn’t as successful as you thought it would be, I’ve never seen him put in a bad performance. My favorite actors from history have to be Steve McQueen and James Dean.
I do like a lot of the ’70s movies. I love Charles Bronson in ‘Hard Times.’ All my favorite movies where ones from yesteryear. The ’70s was a good era. I love all those.
I think sport in general affects what people see in movies. I always try to explain to people in Hollywood that we have to make movies more like sport because, in sport, everything can happen and it’s so much better than movies in some ways.
Like any other creative person, I would make home videos, and I would make sketches with my friends, and I would make my own movies, so I have some love for the creative process.
There’s no difference between movies and television. None at all. Except in a lot of cases, television’s much better than movies.
For me, real life is hard work. Making movies is like a vacation for my soul.
The subjects that I am working are movies that say something. They are shouting or criticising something. I would hate to play a princess waiting for the prince to come and give her a kiss.
My skin is hard when it comes to my music. But with my movies, I’m still a virgin in a lot of ways. I’m not used to being shot down for no reason.
We used to go to movies to see stories about ourselves. It would transport us to new worlds and we’d see aspects of ourselves reflected back.
I don’t go see big, silly movies. I like small things about regular folks, you know?
I guess I was just always one of those guys who asked those fundamental questions: ‘Who am I? What’s this for? Why? What does this mean? Is this real?’ All these pretty basic questions. I like making movies about people who are self-conscious in that way, and are trying to feel their way through the world.
Even today, in our progressive times, in most movies that come out, the men have to have biceps and the women have to be thin or something.
I like to look like a person. It drives me crazy when you see women in movies playing teachers, and they have biceps. It totally takes me out of the movie. I start thinking, Wow, that actress playing this part really looks great!
There’s only three movies I’ve been involved with in my whole life that I really care about. ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ was one, and ‘Princess Bride’ was the second, and ‘Hearts in Atlantis’ is the third.
You read a script and its based on ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’, and it goes right in the bin.
Denzel Washington has a great sense of humor. He did all those ‘Nutty Professor’ movies.
I didn’t like some of the movies that were coming into me.
I never get to go to movies, because I’m a mom.
Well, the wonderful thing about making movies, oddly enough, is that they’re sort of highly motivated graduate studies in one or another field.
Those movies sure got me into a rut.
To be involved with movies that become kind of cult classics… I’ve been very fortunate. ‘The Warriors’ is certainly a cult classic, and ‘Xanadu’ is, to a certain degree, a cult classic as well.
Success is not something I’ve wrapped my brain around. If people go to those movies, then yes, that’s true, big-time success. If not, it’s much ado about nothing.
Go see it and see for yourself why you shouldn’t go see it.
I show elements of the set in my pictures because it’s not real. When I see movies, I often love the ‘making of’ more than the movie itself. It’s not so final. When you have a woman just standing there, it doesn’t mean much.
I praise CBS for taking a risk, which is always the price you pay for opportunity. This is not standard movie of the week storytelling. I think movies of the week have fallen into a niche and that isn’t my niche.
Dumb & Dumber’ is one of my and Glock’s favorite movies. We do stuff in real life that’s just like they do in that movie.
I would love to have my own show, and whatever movies come up, that would be fun to do too. But I love TV, and I love the art of the half-hour sitcom.
When the Beatles came in, I really concentrated on making a lot of movies. Those beach films that we did were a lot fun. They hit with an audience that related to what we were trying to do on the screen. That kept me going all through that Beatle period.
I love reading novels, and I love going to movies, but I kind of hate going to an adaptation of a novel, and it starts off with a voiceover.
I stopped making movies because I don’t like taking my clothes off. Maybe it’s realism, but in my opinion, it’s utter filth.
I had a certain career as an actor that I think was quite personal as well, and had a lot of integrity, but I wasn’t writing my own things or directing my own movies.
I just grew up watching a lot of movies. I’m attracted to this genre and that genre, this type of story, and that type of story. As I watch movies I make some version of it in my head that isn’t quite what I’m seeing – taking the things I like and mixing them with stuff I’ve never seen before.
An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine. A money machine.
I’ve made some great movies. ‘Risky Business’ still stands up. It’s timeless. They study that film in film school.
To be an artist, you don’t have to compose music or paint or be in the movies or write books. It’s just a way of living. It has to do with paying attention, remembering, filtering what you see and answering back, participating in life.
I make movies about people in spiritual crisis because it’s a way for me to spend the time, the energy, the focus and the obsession to come to terms with my own spiritual crisis.
Everybody’s a filmmaker today.
We have to make movies where we do not think this is for the American market or this is for the Chinese market. We have to make a good movie that anyone would just want to sit down and watch because love, language, culture transcend everything.
I look up to actors. I look up to Robert DeNiro, I look up to Johnny Depp, I look up to Al Pacino, I look up to run-of-the-mill really good actors. I love watching movies, and I love watching other actors and learning from them.
I’m obsessed with the power of music and image together. There’s also something about music videos that are incredibly glamorous – there’s a fetishistic aesthetic to them that you don’t really see in movies in the same way.
I’ve had lots of parts in movies that I’ve never seen. I mean no disrespect to them. It was really fun to go act, but I’m not calling my friends and saying, ‘I couldn’t be more proud of this picture. You should go see it.’
Most of the time it’s the role. Sometimes it’s the story and sometimes it just the paycheck. It’s the little movies that come out as stories or the fact that I have work to go out, you know what I’m saying, you can only be out so long without work, you start getting antsy.
My whole life has been movies and religion. That’s it. Nothing else.
To grasp the full significance of life is the actor’s duty; to interpret it his problem; and to express it his dedication.
Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.
The reason I chose the movies that I did was based on where they were being filmed.
I’ve played a lot of bad guys in my time, especially in movies. It’s delightful playing the villain. It’s almost the most interesting and most complicated role in a film.
When I was a kid, we’d go to the movies, and my parents would reach out to everyone around us in the theater, most of whom could barely afford the movie ticket. They’d hand out popcorn and Milk Duds, strike up conversations with them, lend shoulders to cry on, learn their names, and smile at everyone.
And who cares, five years down the road, what most movies made or didn’t make? If it’s good, it stands up.
It’s simple: You get a part. You play a part. You play it well. You do your work and you go home. And what is wonderful about movies is that once they’re done, they belong to the people. Once you make it, it’s what they see. That’s where my head is at.
My motto: ‘No good movie is depressing. All bad movies are depressing.’
In Chennai, we have the beach for entertainment, but in places like Trichy, Salem, and Coimbatore, movies are the only entertainment.
There have been several television movies, ‘Carrie 2,’ two musicals! I remember thinking, the first time there was a musical on Broadway, ‘Oh my gosh! The people who ordinarily go to the theaters, that’s not really the audience.’
