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Emotions Are The Natural Result Of Striving For Something. Every Single Scene Has Two Or More People In It, And Nobody Wants The Same Thing, So They Are Negotiating This One Way Or Another. The Result Of That Negotiation Will Bring Out All Kinds Of Emotional Stuff In You.

-William H. Macy

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Emotions Are The Natural

William H. Macy

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Emotions Are The Natural Result Of Striving For Something. Every Single Scene Has Two Or More People In It, And Nobody Wants The Same Thing, So They Are Negotiating This One Way Or Another. The Result Of That Negotiation Will Bring Out All Kinds Of Emotional Stuff In You.

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So Many Actors Spend So Much Energy Trying To Remember The Lines. It's So Foolish. Guys Are The Worst.

I Have A Tendency To Say 'yes' To A Script Or No To A Script. Not 'yes' Based On A Rewrite.

I Loved Batman, Don't Get Me Wrong, But That Kind Of Mindless Violence Is Not Good For Young Children.

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Another Mistake A Director Can Make Is Not To Be Prepared, So You Get There On The Day To Shoot The Scene, And They Don't Know How It Should Be Blocked, And They're Not Clear On How They Want To Do A Scene.

Here Are The Good Things About Independent Films: They Do The More Interesting, Chancy Scripts. They're Run By Love.

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I Don't Know If It's Fair To Say That It's A Bad Time For Movies. It Seems To Me That Throughout The Entire History Of Filmmaking, Every Year There Have Been About Two Really Wonderful Movies, About 10 Others That Are Pretty Good, And A Whole Pile Of Garbage.

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Somebody's Gotta Stand Up And Say Pubic Hair Is Good, Murder Is Bad. Sex Is Good, Violence Is Bad.

Emotions Are The Natural Result Of Striving For Something. Every Single Scene Has Two Or More People In It, And Nobody Wants The Same Thing, So They Are Negotiating This One Way Or Another. The Result Of That Negotiation Will Bring Out All Kinds Of Emotional Stuff In You.

The Roughest Part Is Showing Up. Once You Throw Yourself Into The Scene, It's Just Great Fun To Let It All Go And Not Be Self-conscious, And Stop Questioning Whether You're Sufficient.

We Thought Sex Was Free. Sex Is Not Free. There's A Price To Be Paid Emotionally, Physically, Even Legally. Sex Isn't A Casual Thing. It's A Huge Thing.

I'm Drawn To A Lot Of First-time Directors. One Of The Great Common Denominators In These Small Independent Films Is That There's A Person, Or Two People, Who Have An Absolutely Monomaniacal Passion To Get These Films Made. That's What Makes Them Happen. Sometimes, It Takes Years And Years To Finally Get It Done, But By Never Backing Down, By Never Giving Up, They Get These Films To The Screen By Hook Or By Crook.

A Good Director Is Very Well Prepared, And Knows Exactly How He's Going To Cut The Film, So The Shooting Is As Efficient As Possible.

Directing Is A Huge Amount Of Work With Very Little Payoff, And A Quarter Of The Money, And Nine Times More Time Spent.

The Best Thing For An Actor To Do Is Take Your Attention Off Of How You Feel About It, And Put It On Striving To Obtain A Particular Objective. The Happy Result Is That It Brings Out All This Unexpected Stuff In Yourself.

All Modesty Aside, I Think I'm Good At Reading Scripts. The Way I Read A Script Is As Fast As I Can, All In One Sitting, And I Don't Read Many Of The Stage Directions. I Only Read Enough Stage Directions To Let Me Know Where I Am, Because They're Always So Verbose And Mostly Horseshit. So I Only Read The Dialogue, Which Allows Me To See The Movie In My Mind's Eye In Real Time.

As An Actor, Early On, You Learn That The Audience Is Never Wrong. And If You Think They Are Wrong, You Need To Find A Different Way To Make A Living. Collectively The Audience Is Smarter Than You Will Ever, Ever Be.

We Must Admit That It Is Quite Common That People Do Have Affairs With Their Leading Ladies And Men.

At The End Of The Day, What Actors Really Want To Do Is Act A Lot And Not Wait Around In The Trailer.

The End Of The Day

It Started With The Godfather, This Operatic Violence. I Don't Know.

There Are Some Older Women Out There Who Are Just Knockouts, Real Beauties, And They're Not Getting The Roles They Should.

I've Always Felt That, No Matter Where You Go, People Are Just People.

Ultimately, A More Experienced Director Realizes That You've Got To Stop Sometime And Just Move On. They're Braver About That.

I Have Been Working Out For 30 Years, Staying In Shape In The Dream That Someday I Would Get To Play A Sex Scene. Finally I Get One, And They Cut It.

Yeah, I Made It. It Sneaks Up On You. You're Some Schmuck And You Wake Up One Day And You Go, Good God, I'm The Cheese.

It's Hard On An Actor When You Have To Do A Scene 45 Times And You Know Damn Well That Three Of The Angles A Director Is Shooting Will Never Make It Into The Movie.

I'll Tell You This About The Oscars - They're Real.

I'm Not Religious. It's An Issue, 'cause I've Got Two Little Kids, And I Feel You Can't Grow Up Without Knowledge Of Religion.

Every Scene Has Two People Who Want Two Different Things, So There's Conflict In Every Scene. You've Got To Duke It Out, And You've Got To Get The Other Person To Change His Or Her Mind And Do It Your Way.

Making A Mistake Means Overshooting A Scene, Shooting Too Many Takes, For Instance. Long After You've Got It, You Just Keep Shooting.

I've Discovered That I Can't Trust The Ratings Board At All, Because They Have - To My Mind - A Perverted Point Of View About What's Appropriate For Children. They Think That If You See Any Part Of A Male Or Female Anatomy, We Have To Protect Children From It, Which Is Not True, And They Think Almost Any Level Of Violence Is Okay For Children, Which Is Absolutely Not True... They're Really Off The Mark.

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Best Experiences

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The Actor Has The Advantage - Or The Liability - Of Knowing, "it's Going To Be My Face Up There On The Frickin' Screen, So I Better Keep My Wits About Me. Nobody's Going To Care That I Was Bad Because I Was Not Happy. They're Only Going To Know I'm Bad."

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Women, In Order To Recharge Their Batteries, Gather In Groups. They Can Recharge Their Batteries With Their Sisters. I Tend To Recharge My Batteries In Solitude, Therefore The Motorcycle Trips. I Need To Be Alone. As A Matter Of Fact, I Have To Be Careful. I Could Turn Into A Hermit.

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Stage Directions

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I Introduced Myself To Scorsese And I Said, "if You Need Someone To Do Craft Services, I'm There."

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Nothing Else Counts Except What You Want.

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I'm Sure I Have A Process, But It Mostly Takes Place In My Dreams.

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It's Not Good For People To Have The Safety Net Too Low... People Can Take Care Of Themselves Better Than We Allow Them To.

I'm Really Proud Of The Writing On Door To Door, And I Think That's The Emmy That Meant The Most - The Writing.

I Do Love Comedy, But I'm Not Brave Enough To Tackle A Script Whose Goal Is To Make You Laugh. That's Tough. The Ones That Can Do It, I Tip My Hat Off To Them, But I Don't Have That Kind Of Humor Or Mind.

It's Hard To Be Depressed Around A Ukulele. You Just Pick It Up And You're Halfway Home.

There Are Statistics Out That Say 20 Year Olds, 18 Years Olds Think About Sex 90 Percent Of The Time. They Only Don't Think About Sex When They're Eating, And That's Rare.

I Think Acting Is Getting Better And Better.

One Of The Things I Did Early On In Film Was Over-enunciate And Talk Too Loud.

To A Certain Extent. I'm A Fan Of Rehearsal On The Day [of The Shoot], More Than Getting Together A Week Beforehand.

With An Inexperienced Director, A Lot Of Times The Days Go On To 14, 15, 16 Hours. It Goes Horrendously Overtime. And Because Of The Lack Of Money, They Just Keep You There, Regardless Of The Hours.

If I Had My Choice, I Would Do The Same Little Independent Films, But They Would Have $100 Million Budgets, So I Could Get Paid A Fortune And Hang Out In A Huge Trailer.

What I've Discovered Is, Really, Acting Is Acting Is Acting. It's All The Same. Seventy-five Percent Of The Skills Are The Same In Both Media.

Sometimes, Directors Are Afraid To Stop Shooting, Because The Second You Stop And Say, "we Got It," And Move On, You'll Never Get Another Chance. And They're Terrified To Get In The Cutting Room And Not Be Happy. So They Just Keep Shooting.

You Should Know The Lines, Be Prepared, Get Sleep, And Have The Script Analyzed So You're Ready To Rock And Roll.

The Spirit Awards Are Great Too, They'll Say Anything Because They're Not Televised. Another Great Drinking Night.

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