‘The Secret Agent,’ Joseph Conrad’s 1907 novel about an anarchist plot to blow up the Royal Observatory at Greenwich – in fact, a scheme by a secret police agent to stir up a government backlash – has acquired a kind of cult status as the classic novel for the post-9/11 age.
After Cannes, my agent told me to get the next flight to LA. He was right. I had a part in ‘Prime Suspect 3’ by the end of the week.
Frankly, I would never accept an award from Vladimir Putin because then you kind of give some credence and credibility to this butcher, this KGB agent, which is what he is.
You have to make a lot of sacrifices, and the main thing you have to sacrifice is your privacy. It’s funny because when I was growing up, my daddy was and still is an insurance agent in our home town. He couldn’t go anywhere without somebody recognizing him or needing something from him.
The smartest thing I ever did as a writer was hire a retired conservation agent to blaze a hiking trail for me. It’s nothing fancy – just a narrow path that meanders for a little over a mile through the woods near my home. But that trail through the trees has become my therapist, my personal trainer, and my best editor.
The key factor is whether the agent is a member of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, which screens its members and requires them to uphold a Canon of Ethics.
I met my agent when I was 10 years old on a family skiing vacation. He asked if I was interested in acting, and I had been doing school plays. A couple of years later, I called him up, and I started auditioning.
All kids are selfish. I wanted to do homework and do my thing and call my agent. My mother’s needs weren’t in my mind at that moment.
I was told by my agent that a number of big stars won’t work with anyone two inches taller than them and most of them are under six feet, so you have to be prepared to have trouble.
I’ve been in the industry from the age of 9, so I have an agent. That’s how you get auditions.
My brother is an agent, so he is in the business. Is he my agent? No, no, no. That would never work.
I did a play called ‘On Golden Pond’ in a dinner theater in Maine and then went to New York for a talent competition having put together a three-man juggling routine and some one-liners and I got myself an agent from that.
My first agent told me to change my name or I’d only play Jewish parts or Indians. Of course I refused to change it. Shortly thereafter she came up to me and told me I had to keep it, because her numerologist said it was very, very good.
A lot of student directors used to pick other students to be in their graduate films, so. I ended up doing a couple of them just for fun. Eventually, I got an agent through a friend and I did some commercials; then I got Knots Landing.
The people need someone who’s closer to them and the American people need someone who will be their change agent and fight for the issues that are important to them.
He was the main guy at Manchester United, and he’s a guy I really look up to and who I learn from a lot because we share the same agent. Here and there, he sends a bit of advice to me, and it helps me improve. But I’m Romelu Lukaku – I’m not Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
I have a book in the pipeline of short stories. You want to hear an agent scream, say ‘I’m thinking about doing a collection of short stories set in the Ozarks.’
I would come home with my friend Bill, and we would sit and watch ‘Get Smart.’ And I was Agent 44, and he was Agent 85. And it was a fantastic – and all we wanted to do was sleep with Barbara Feldon.
It is nice to be the most expensive Dutchman, and it is nice for my agent and for Ajax. But it does not matter to me whether I cost €5m or €150m or €200m. I just need to make sure that I do my own thing.
Much of the time, as an actor, you sit around waiting. Most of your life and career, you’re waiting for your agent or your manager to call you.
I went to university for a year, and I’m not one for schooling and have no enjoyment sitting in a classroom all day and ended up going to live in England for two years, just to travel. I worked in a bar in a hotel for a couple of years and had no intention of becoming an actor. That’s where I met my agent.
If you want to be an actor, you should just get out there and do it. I don’t go for the approach of first getting photos and an agent. I think you should start with the work, and the other stuff will follow. As with ‘opportunity knocks,’ you have to be ready.
I never had trouble getting an agent. I went out and got my first couple roles, and literally within six months I never had to have another job other than acting.
With ‘California,’ editors were reading it, and fast, and others were emailing my agent to request it. Ultimately, there were a few editors interested in the book, and it sold at auction about two weeks after the submission process started. I couldn’t believe it!
In 2005, I did a lot on ‘Habibi’ and a lot of business stuff. I got an agent that year.
As the idealized mother, I might choose Irene Dunne as the mother in ‘I Remember Mama’ who strives and not just cooks and scrubs for her children, but who also acts as her daughter’s literary agent.
Science is not the means by which we come to understand why physical laws and circumstances are the way they are. When we ask why – assuming the question is really ‘why’ and not ‘how’ – we are really asking to know the motive of some responsible agent capable of reason.
I did so many acting jobs for nothing. I was in a play that opened on Christmas Eve above a police precinct on 54th Street. Three people showed up. One of them was an agent. It was my first agent.
I moved to London to get an agent, though that took a while – everyone said no, understandably.
I was looking for someone to represent me and an agent sat me down and said, ‘I don’t think there’s anything to work with here.’
It’s funny: I’ve been very successful and done a lot of films, and I don’t really have an agent – I don’t really pursue jobs, I let people come to me.
I was imagining a long life of being a stone cold loser. Then I got a job, which was really nice, then I got a great agent, a great manager, which was really nice. I was doing a lot of set ups, and, you know, I got to start working in L.A.
Baseball and its teams are proud of the sport’s long-standing role as a change agent in American culture and society.
I had a different agent after ‘Hook,’ and they were, like, ‘We don’t know where to go with you. It’s like you’ve already gone to the top of what’s out there for a young Asian actor.’ No one had done anything higher profile than that. And I’m, like, ‘OK, but I’m only 15.’
I got an American agent. I don’t know what to think about that.
I finished my junior year of high school and flew out to Los Angeles. I didn’t know the difference between a manager and an agent. But I got here and just started hustling and meeting anyone I could.
Ninety-nine percent of the men and women of the FBI… are just professionals. I don’t want Americans, if an FBI agent knocks on their door, to have to be worried about well, is he a Democrat or a Republican? He’s an FBI agent.
I wish to be cremated. One tenth of my ashes shall be given to my agent, as written in our contract.
I came up in a time where the assumption was, in the ’60s and ’70s, where the federal government was a great agent of progressive social change, it was the intervener in the best sense, and it would come and address injustice forthrightly.
It’s very nice having my mum as my agent. You know that she’s always doing what’s best for you.
Would most politicians have gone to a meeting with someone advertised as being an agent of the Russian government?
I’d most prefer to be a free agent and fight up to six times a year, but that is unlikely.
Your relationship with an agent has got to be mutually beneficial. If you can’t help their careers, then they’re not going to be interested.
To become a Secret Service agent, applicants must pass a polygraph exam. But after being hired, agents are never required to undergo regular lie detector testing again.
No matter how old and glorious the models, sad indeed is the woman who sees fashion as a means of self-expression rather than an agent of social control.
I’d be a terrible secret agent. I can’t keep a secret and I’m not sneaky.
Whether you’re an obstetrician or a third-grade teacher or a real estate agent, you know when you’re doing good work. You’re passionate about it.
As an FBI agent, you don’t want to go in there gangbusters and confrontational. You are going to get a lot more information if you put the subject at ease and allow them to talk.
When I first went up to see my editor, I was with my agent, and my editor said, ‘Well, what have you been doing all these years?’ And my agent said, ‘He’s been in recovery. From his childhood.’
I tried for years to get an agent because I was told you needed an agent. The agent-hunting process was grim indeed.
I am more focused on the games; things like contracts I leave with my agent.
My long-term ambition is to be an agent of change.
When I first met my agent, I said, If something comes up and it fits my age range and personality, I would like you to send me up for it, even if it specifies blonde or brunette.
The really hard moment was when my dad said, ‘Honey, if an agent is telling you to lose weight, then maybe you should lose weight.’ I was 15, standing in our living room, having a moment I will never forget. I never had a parent tell me to lose weight, and it hurt.
