Director Quotes

“It was never my dream to be famous. I didn't start acting to be a movie star. I started in the theater and my desire was to get better at my craft. It's still my desire. I don't consider myself a movie star, nor do I really have the desire to be one. I'm just an entertainer. An actor who works hard at his craft. Whatever labels people give me, that's not really me or part of my process.”

“Don't be afraid to fail big, to dream big.”

“In the movie I realized, I had the luxury of getting to see how the other person feels.”

“The poorest people are the sweetest people.”

“I'd be more frightened by not using whatever abilities I'd been given. I'd be more frightened by procrastination and laziness.”

“For me, success is inner peace. That's a good day for me.”

“I had a lot of success from the start. I never really was tested for long periods of time. I got my first professional job while I was a senior in college. I signed with the William Morris Agency before I graduated.”

“You'll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse. ... Now, I've been blessed to make hundreds of millions of dollars in my life. I can't take it with me, and neither can you. It's not how much you have but what you do with what you have.”

“I've worked in a factory. I was a garbage man. I worked in a post office. It's not that long ago. I like to think that I'm just a regular guy.”

“Growing up I didn't watch movies.”

“Cursed be the ground for our sake. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for us. For out of the ground we were taken, for the dust we are and to the dust we shall return.”

“That's where you can find things and modulate your performance and give the other actors something fresh to respond to. We've probably all worked with actors who when it's suddenly your close up, they get sleepy. I don't like that. It's selfish acting, and I won't tolerate it.”

“I like talking. I like acting.”

“We live in a time when people give up too easy.”

“I know, as an actor, I don't like sharing everything with the director. And it's fine if they don't with me.”

“I always think it's not what we know that's terrifying; it's what we don't know. That's sort of pervasive with everything in life.”

“I'm not afraid to upset people. But I am not as upset because I understand what I'm up against.”

“Don't get all sentimental on me, Makes me think I'm gonna die.”

“You will never see a U-Haul behind a hearse.”

“If you don't trust the pilot, don't go.”

“It's not easy for me to admit that I've been standing in the same place for 18 years.”

“The last few years I've been saying I was ready to quit. It wasn't that interesting to me. Now that I'm directing, it's all new again.”

“You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too. That's a part of it.”

“It's important for us to tell our stories.”

“I played Othello, but I didn't sit around thinking how Laurence Olivier did it when he played it. That wouldn't do me any good.”