Background Image

...

What I Think Is Important For A Young Person Is To Figure Out How To Be Useful And Not Be So Concentrated On Themselves, But To See What They Can Do To Make The Overall Collaboration With All The Other People Involved In A Movie Work Better.

-Harrison Ford

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

What I Think Is

Harrison Ford

...

What I Think Is Important For A Young Person Is To Figure Out How To Be Useful And Not Be So Concentrated On Themselves, But To See What They Can Do To Make The Overall Collaboration With All The Other People Involved In A Movie Work Better.

Views: 54543

Topic

More From Harrison Ford

I Came Across The Script [42], And I Read It, And I Said, "i Really Want To Do This." And When I Had My Agent Call, They Said, Ah, You Know, It's Not What They're Looking For. So, Ok. And Then I Let It Go For A While, And Then It Just Kept Gnawing At Me, So I Kept Pushing.

I Have An Attorney. I'm Looking To Be Rich Like Harrison [ford]. I'm Trying To Have Planes And Do All That Stuff.

I Think Parenting Is A Huge Responsibility. It Was In My Time When I Was Growing Up And There Still Continues To Be That Responsibility.

What I Think Is Really Great About This Movie [42], That Young People Who Weren't There Will Have A Chance To Have The Visceral Experience Of What Jackie Robinson Went Through.

I Think I Did Have A Reputation For Being Grumpy. I Don't Think I'm Grumpy. I Have Opinions. I Have An Independent Vision. I Am A Purposeful Person. But On A Daily Basis, I Think I'm Other Than Grumpy. I Think It Is A Case Where I Am Coming To Do Business And Not There Just To Be Flattered And Cajoled And Used.

I Am Not The First Man Who Wanted To Make Changes In His Life At 60 And I Won't Be The Last. It Is Just That Others Can Do It With Anonymity.

The Kindest Word To Describe My Performance In School Was Sloth.

I Had No Idea What I Wanted To Do With My Life, So Nothing Of What I Was Studying Seemed To Fit. I Know Now That I Should Have Taken Advantage Of That Time And That I Missed A Great Deal Of The Opportunity To Educate Myself.

I Like Working. It Is Where I Feel Useful. I Have No Plans To Cut Down. I Am Happy With What I Do. There Will Be A Lot More Of Me Yet, That's For Sure.

Because The Character Is A Fiction, He's A Composite Of Other Contributors To The Science That Brought This Enzyme Therapy Through The Process. We Had The Opportunity To Make Him Up Out Of Those Things That Helped Tell The Story. We Wanted To Create Both Ally And Antagonist For John [in The Extraordinary Measures].

I Don't Do Stunts - I Do Running, Jumping And Falling Down. After 25 Years I Know Exactly What I'm Doing.

It's Important Not To Base Your Ambition On Anybody Else's History, But To Figure Out How Best To Use Your Own Particular Personality And Understanding Of Yourself To Help Tell Other People's Stories.

My Occupation Is Assistant Storyteller. It Is Not "icon."

I Love The Comic Opportunities That Come Up In The Context Of A Father-son Relationship.

Bikes And Planes Aren’t About Going Fast Or Having Fun; They’re Toys, But Serious Ones.

I Wanted To Live The Life, A Different Life. I Didn't Want To Go To The Same Place Every Day And See The Same People And Do The Same Job. I Wanted Interesting Challenges.

[ Chadwick Boseman] Was Not A Baseball Player. He Spent, I Don't Know, Countless Hours, Many Months, Working Two Sessions A Day With Professional Pro Coaches To Develop The Baseball Skills That He Needed.

I Have The Ordinary Experience Of Being Anonymous When I'm In An Airplane Talking To Air-traffic Control, And They Don't Know Who They're Talking To. I Have A Lot Of Common Experiences.

I Think You Have To Be Very Careful With Effects That They Don't Overpower The Story With The Visual Element.

I Think That The Best Movies Are Made, Not From A Point Of View That Depends On Your Personal History, Whether It's The Color Of Your Skin Or The Politics That You Had Or The Place That You Come From, But From A Point Of View Of An Understanding Of Human Nature, An Understanding Of History, And An Understanding Of What Motivates People.

You Have To Remember That Baseball Really Was The American Pastime In The Forties, Not Football, Basketball Or Any Other Sport.

It Took Me A Long Time To Figure Out How To Act, And How To Conduct Myself In The Business So I Could Get What I Felt I Needed To Support My Potential And Give Them What They Wanted.

What I Found Was An Emotional Consistency With Him. The Words, The Scenes, The Situations - I Wasn't Mimicking What I Thought Branch Rickey's Emotional Reality Would Have Been.

The Job's Always The Same. It Involves Helping To Tell The Story And Creating An Alloy Between Character And Story That Serves The Film.

I Knew That There Was An Aspect To This Story That Was Beyond The Typical And That It Was Something Very Important About America, About Our Culture, And About Bringing A Story To A New Generation That Perhaps Didn't Know The Details Of It, (and) Hadn't Had The Visceral Experience That This Film Is [42].

I'm Like A Fireman. When I Go Out On A Call, I Want To Put Out A Big Fire, I Don't Want To Put Out A Fire In A Dumpster.

I Am My Age. I'm Not Making Any Effort To Change It.

That's Always My Ambition Is To Create A Character Out Of What Will Help Tell The Story. I've Never Been An Actor To Say My Character Wouldn't Do That, Because He Should Do That In Order To Help Tell The Story.

Baseball Was A Metaphor For America, Both Here And In Terms Of How It Was Understood By The Rest Of The World.

There's A Real Simple Analogy. You Have To Perceive It From The Ground Up. You Have To Lay A Firm Foundation, Then Every Step Becomes Part Of A Logical Process.

I Was Desperately Unhappy With It [blade Runner]. I Was Compelled By Contract To Record Five Or Six Different Versions Of The Narration, Each Of Which Was Found Wanting On A Storytelling Basis. The Final Version Was Something That I Was Completely Unhappy With. The Movie Obviously Has A Very Strong Following, But It Could Have Been More Than A Cult Picture.

If People Recognize Me When I'm Out In Public, I'm Very Nice To Them. I'm Very Nice To People Even When They Don't Recognize Me. I Don't Even Mind If People Come Up To Me While I'm Eating Dinner, But If They Recognize Me While I'm Having Sex, I Refuse To Sign Autographs.

I Get Mad When People Call Me An Action Movie Star. Indiana Jones Is An Adventure Film, A Comic Book, A Fantasy.

It Doesn't Matter To Me Whether I Go Back To Outer Space Or Not [while Acting]. The Job's The Same And I Don't Have Any Sort Of Genre Preferences. I'm Looking For A Good Story And A Good Character, Whether Earthbound Or Not.

If You're Going To Define Me Properly, You Must Think In Terms Of My Failures As Well As My Successes.

Hokey Religions And Ancient Weapons Are No Match For A Good Blaster At Your Side, Kid.

The Only Ambition I Ever Had Going Into And Committing To Wanting To Be An Actor Was To Live My Life.

All My Friends Were Going Off To Be Professionals, And I Said I Wanted To Be An Actor.

The Thing I Always Guard Against When I'm Talking To People I'm Working With About A Script Is That There's A Thing I Don't Like And It's Called "talk Story." It's When You're Talking About The Story; The Characters Are Tasked With Talking About The Story Instead Of Allowing The Audience To Experience The Story.

Never Again Will I Allow Our Political Self-interest To Deter Us From Doing What We Know To Be Morally Right. Atrocity And Terror Are Not Political Weapons. And To Those Who Would Use Them, Your Day Is Over. We Will Never Negotiate. We Will No Longer Tolerate And We Will No Longer Be Afraid. It's Your Turn To Be Afraid.

Acting Is Not About Competing. Acting Is About Cooperating. Acting Is About Collaboration. It's About Your Utility, Your Usefulness, Your Capacity To Add To The Work That Has Already Been Done And Will Be Done. You're Just Part Of A Team. I Never Feel Competitive About Acting.

The Third Time You Say A Thing It Sounds Like A Lie.

The Focus And The Concentration And The Attention To Detail That Flying Takes Is A Kind Of Meditation. I Find It Restful And Engaging, And Other Things Slip Away.

Focus And Concentration

My Work Has Always Been Important To Me. The Reason I Continue To Do It Is Because It's So Much Fun For Me. I Love My Work And So That's What Keeps Me In The Game.

Wood Burns Faster When You Have To Cut And Chop It Yourself.

I Think What A Lot Of Action Movies Lose These Days, Especially The Ones That Deal With Fantasy, Is You Stop Caring At Some Point Because You've Lost Human Scale.

It's Always Nice To Anticipate Working In Something That You Know People Will Have An Appetite For.

I Don't Think I've Mastered Anything. I'm Still Wrestling With The Same Frustrations, The Same Issues, The Same Problems As I Always Did. That's What Life Is Like.

Irish As A Person But I Feel Jewish As An Actor.

The Only Thing Hard About Being An Actor Is Being Out Of Work. So, When You Get A Job - That Part Ain't Hard At All.

People Need To See What's Going On, And They Have To Be Exposed To The Mechanisms That Can Help Make It Right.

An Actor Only Has His Own Understanding And Experience To Work With.

Acting Was A Way Out At First. A Way Out Of Not Knowing What To Do, A Way Of Focusing Ambitions. And The Ambition Wasn't For Fame. The Ambition Was To Do An Interesting Job.

[after Playing Indiana Jones And Han Solo] Hero Image Concerns Me A Little, Though Not For My Sake. All It Means To Me Is That I Have A Responsibility Not To Get Caught Doing Anything Terrible And Thereby Jeopardise My Credentials. Not That I Do Terrible Things, Like Running Over Dogs Or Anything Like That. It Just Makes You Think Twice Before You Say Or Do Things In Public.

I Had Never Even Thought About Doing Something That I'd Never Done Before Or Proving Anything.

I Was Completely Unprepared For The Public Spectacle My Private Life Became, And Didn't Like It A Bit.

There's No Independent Satisfaction Without The Success Of The Film Itself. The Feel That You Have Done The Best You Can To Support The Film.

What's Important Is To Be Able To See Yourself, I Think, As Having Commonality With Other People And Not Determine, Because Of Your Good Luck, That Everybody Is Less Significant, Less Interesting, Less Important Than You Are.

I Saw What Luck And Success I Had As An Opportunity To Twist It Up And Do Something Different, So I've Always Sought Out Different Genres And Different Kinds Of Characters.

I Get An Opportunity To Communicate With The Audience About The Movie That I've Made. I Get The Chance To Bring Attention To The Film That I've Made. I Care A Lot About The Movies That I Make. I Want Them To Reach An Audience, And I Want Them To Be Successful. I Promote Nearly Everything That I Do, Unless I've Got Some Bad Taste In My Mouth.

The Basic Skill Of An Actor Is, In Fact, Empathy, And That's Maybe Not A Skill, It's A Disposition. I Am An Assistant Storyteller. I Enjoy Feeling Useful To A Team Effort. It's My Way Of Finding A Use For Myself, A Utility In This World.

[jimmy] Breslin's [write] Really Great Book On Branch Rickey. And Branch Rickey Himself Wrote Quite A Lot. There's Some Film And Kinescope From Television.

Why Do I Ask For Directions? Because I Hate Wasting Time.

I Never Followed Baseball Very Much. As A Kid, I Never Followed Sports.

Hell Of A Thing When A Man's Got Good Health, Plenty Of Money And Absolutely Nothing To Do.

I'm Still Interested In Perfecting Whatever Talents I Have And Continuing To Grow As An Actor And Continuing To Be Useful To The Telling Of The Story.

I Just Like The Process Of Taking Something Written On A Sheet Of Paper And Giving It Life And Shape. I Like The Collaborative Process Of Filmmaking, Which Is All Simply To Say That I Love My Work And I Would Continue To Look For Things That Have The Potential To Be Engaging And Successful.

I've Always Wanted To Be Bald. I Mean It, Completely Bald. Wouldn't It Be Great To Be Bald In The Rain?

I Don't Think I Have Something That's Pronounceable As A Philosophy. ... When It Was Fashionable To Say, "may The Force Be With You," I Always Said, "force Yourself." ... I'll Say Again Then, "the Force Is Within You. Force Yourself."

I Don't Mind Doing Interviews. I Don't Mind Answering Thoughtful Questions. But I'm Not Thrilled About Answering Questions Like, 'if You Were Being Mugged, And You Had A Lightsaber In One Pocket And A Whip In The Other, Which Would You Use?'

What Is News? It's Hard To Quantify. Certainly News Has Changed Completely, And The Morning Shows Are Not Really Designed To Bring You The News, Except To Tell You What Happened Overnight, And The Rest Of It Is A Kind Of Magazine Mentality - A Little Bit Of This, A Little Bit Of That. It's Harder To Be An Educated And Informed Citizen.

I Don't Think Nostalgia Is Very Useful To Me. There Is A Story To Be Told, There's Behaviour To Create Or To Bring To The Screen That Will Help Tell That Story, And Nostalgia Is Just Not Really A Big Part Of My Emotional Package.

When I Was A Carpenter, I Once Worked With This Russian Lady Architect. I Would Tell Her, ‘look, I’m Terribly Sorry, But I Want To Change That A Half Inch,’ And She Would Say, ‘no Limit For Better.’ I Think That Is A Worthy Credo. You Keep On Going Until You Get It As Close To Being Right As The Time And Patience Of Others Will Allow.

When We Were Making It [star Wars], None Of The Effects Were In. So The First Time, I Thought It Was, You Know, That - I Mean, We Were Surrounded By English Crew Members That Could Hardly Keep Themselves Together. They Were, "here Comes The Guy In The Dog Suit." They Made Fun Of Us, Which Was Ok. But The First Time I Was Sitting In A Theater, And I Saw All The Effects In, And The Big Ship Flew Over The Audience, And The Sound Rumbled, I Pretty Much Thought We Were Close To Home.

We All Have Big Changes In Our Lives That Are More Or Less A Second Chance.

My Ambition From The Very Beginning Was To Make A Good Part For Myself, Something Differently To What Lately I've Been Doing.

Our Health Relies Entirely On The Vitality Of Our Fellow Species On Earth.

With The Cgi, Suddenly There's A Thousand Enemies Instead Of Six - The Army Goes Off Into The Horizon. You Don't Need That. The Audience Loses Its Relationship With The Threat On The Screen. That's Something That's Consistently Happening And It Makes These Movies Like Video Games And That's A Soulless Enterprise. It's All Kinetics Without Emotion.

I Think American Films Right Now Are Suffering From An Excess Of Scale. Lots Of Movies We're Seeing Now Are More Akin To Video Games Than Stories About Human Life And Relationships. Twelve- To 20-year-olds Are Maybe The Largest Economic Force In The Us Movie Business. I'm Not A Very Nostalgic Person - But I Enjoy A Good Story.

A Bad Guy In A Movie Has A Lot Of Latitude For Acting. He Can Walk Up The Wall, Crawl Across The Ceiling, Go Piss In The Corner And Everybody Will Say, "fantastic!" But Somebody's Going To Have To Catch That Sucker. Somebody's Going To Have To Play The Guy Who Gets Him In The End. And That's A Better Part.

You Have To Have A Darkness...for The Dawn To Come. You Have To Have Experienced Difficulties And Challenges To Fully Appreciate And Be Grateful For Success.

All I Would Tell People Is To Hold Onto What Was Individual About Themselves, Not To Allow Their Ambition For Success To Cause Them To Try To Imitate The Success Of Others. You've Got To Find It On Your Own Terms.

I've Never Been Bothered By Proximity To Special Effects And I've Never Felt Disadvantaged By Them. They're All Part Of A Movie, And When The Movie's Under Control I Don't Feel Upstaged By Them.

The Loss Of Anonymity Is Something That Nobody Can Prepare You For. When It Happened, I Recognized That I'd Lost One Of The Most Valuable Things In Life. To This Day, I'm Not All That Happy About It

My Older Kids Are Fantastic People. It Can't Be The Result Of My Influence On Them.

Starring In A Science-fiction Film Doesn't Mean You Have To Act Science Fiction.

There Is No Barrier To Indiana Jones Growing Older. It's Not An Age-based Character. We Can't Bang Him Up As Much As We Used To, Maybe. But I Guess I Can Pretend To Have The Capacity As Well As I Pretended Before.

I Thought It Was Funny. I Always Thought Star Wars And Indiana Jones Were Basically Comedies. The Humour Came Out Of Their Relationships; It Came Out Of The Fact That We Were Basically Types.

Henry: Well I'm Sorry About Your Head Though, But I Thought You Were One Of Them. Indiana: Dad, They Come In Through The Doors.

I Don't Take Trouble At All To Conform A Screenplay To My Iconography. I Don't Say, "we Can't Do That - The Audience Wouldn't Accept It." I Try To Take The Limitations Of What Is Required To Play A Leading Character And Then Screw With Them.

You Know How A Woman Gets A Man Excited? She Shows Up.

Work Hard And Figure Out How To Be Useful And Don't Try To Imitate Anybody Else's Success. Figure Out How To Do It For Yourself With Yourself.

Failures Are Inevitable. Unfortunately, In Film They Live For Ever And They're 40 Ft Wide And 20 Ft High.

I Need A Challenge. I Need The Intellectual Stimulation. I'm A Member Of A Community On Each Film, Working In Concert To Try To Bring An Idea To Life. It's A Great Job.

I'm Like Old Shoes, I've Never Been Hip.

Hollywood's Got Its Own Particular Environment.

As A Matter Of Fact, That Was A Bit Of A Problem For Me At The Beginning Of My Career - The Problem Of Identification. In The Conversation I Played A Character Who Was Gay, So Nobody Recognised Me From American Graffiti. When I Did Apocalypse Now, After Star Wars, I Played An Intelligence Officer Of The American Army. George Lucas Saw The Footage I Had Done And Didn't Recognise Me Until Halfway Through The Scene.

I Was Always Very Grateful I Was Never Hot. In The Entire Length Of My Career, I Haven't Been The Most Adored.

What I Think Is Important For A Young Person Is To Figure Out How To Be Useful And Not Be So Concentrated On Themselves, But To See What They Can Do To Make The Overall Collaboration With All The Other People Involved In A Movie Work Better.

Never Claim Credit For Anything. 'cause You Can't Righteously Do That. There's Luck And Grace And Accident.

If I Were A Serious Person, I'd Probably Have A Real Job.

It's A Wonderful Opportunity To Be Part Of A Child's Growing Up, Which Is Always An Endless Springtime. You See The Blossoming And The Growing And The Nurturing And The Payoff.

When We Protect The Places Where The Processes Of Life Can Flourish, We Strengthen Not Only The Future Of Medicine, Agriculture And Industry, But Also The Essential Conditions For Peace And Prosperity.

I Don't Want To Be A Slave To Electronic Devices. I Don't Want To Be Connected To My Friends. I Don't Want To Send Snapshots Of My Dog And Cute Pictures Of My Family Life To My Friends And Family. I Don't Want To Be Liked, By Pushing A Button. I Use All Of This Technology To Basically Replace Devices That I Had In The Past Which Worked Just Fine.

I Shaved My Hairline Back And Dyed My Hair And Wore A Little Powder, A Little Paint, A Fat Suit, And I Changed My Voice, But The Emotions Were Consistent With What The Point Of The Scene [with Branch Rickey] Was.

The Capacity To Create [visual] Effects In The Computer Has Made The Job Easier, But It Has Also Introduced The Complexity That You Can With A Few More Keystrokes Generate Such A Busy Canvas That The Eye Doesn't Know Where To Go. You Lose Human Scale On An Event And You're Just Wowed By The Kinetics And The Visualization. But, Often In Those Cases I Feel You Lose Touch With The Human Characters And What It Is That They Would Feel And How They Might Feel, And That's Still The Most Important Part.

What I Look For Is Identifying What The Utility Of A Character Is To The Telling Of The Story Overall. If I Can Identify That From Reading The Script, Then I've Got A Clear Idea Of Whether Or Not I Think The Character Is Worth Playing.

You Always Have To Know What The Ambition Of The Scene Is, What The Purpose Of That Scene Is In The Telling Of The Story Overall, So That You're There To Support The Story.

When I Met Scientists, I Found Them To Be As Various As Any Other Group Of People.

I Realized Early On That Success Was Tied To Not Giving Up. Most People In This Business Gave Up And Went On To Other Things. If You Simply Didn't Give Up, You Would Outlast The People Who Came In On The Bus With You.

I Think People Only Have So Much Interest In Anybody, And If You Barrage Them In Between The Times You Have Something To Offer Them You Become A Personality Rather Than An Actor - Much More Short-lived. I Only Work Once A Year. And That's Enough.

I Have Relationships With People I'm Working With, Based On Our Combined Interest. It Doesn't Make The Relationship Any Less Sincere, But It Does Give It A Focus That May Not Last Beyond The Experience.

I Don't Want To Be A Movie Star. I Want To Be In Movies That Are Stars.

If You're Asking Me To Acknowledge That I've Gotten Older, I Can Do That.

I Have Children. I Have Other Concerns. I Have Other Focuses. I Really Feel Very Sympathetic And I Would Love To Be Able To Help But I Don't See This As The Opportunity, Having Done 'extraordinary Measures', For Me To Suddenly Leap On A Soap Box And Begin To Talk About The Pharmaceutical Industry Or The Desperate Plight Of Sick Children. I Do What I Can In My World But I Don't Have The Bona Fides To Do That Right Now.

It's Time To Change The Conversation About Nature To Focus On What We All Have In Common: Our Shared Humanity.

No One Wants To See A Hero Have To Pick Up His Cane To Hit Someone, But I'm Still Quite Fit Enough To Fake It.

I Never Feel Sexy. I Have A Distant Relationship With The Mirror.

Distant Relationship

There Comes A Point When You've Exhausted Your Opportunities Playing Good Guys. I've Been Around Long Enough, I Think I'm Entitled To Explore A Bit. But What I Saw There Was An Opportunity To Play A Character Different From What The Audience's Expectation Was. A Chance To Take Their Crude Experience Of Me - Of My Iconography, If You Will - And Turn It On Its Ear At An Appropriate Juncture In The Film To Be Useful To The Process Of Telling The Story.

My Character Is Meant To Know Nothing About Rap, And Not To Like It Very Much, But I Know About It, Because My Kids Make Me Listen To It. There's Some Rap I Do Like Very Much. I Like Eminem, Blackalicious.

I Think Retirement's For Old People. I'm Still In The Business, Thank You. I Have A Young Child Of Nine Years Old, And I Want To Live As Long As I Can To See Him Grow Up. I'm Enjoying My Life And I Want To Stick Around For As Long As I Can.

The Only Thing That I Have Done That Is Not Mitigated By Luck, Diminished By Good Fortune, Is That I Persisted, And Other People Gave Up.

What I Hate Is The Loss Of Anonymity.

We Have Been Led To Believe That We Have Come A Long Way Toward World Nuclear Disarmament. But That Is Not The Case. Our Government Is Not Doing All That It Could. We Must Urge Our Leaders To Fulfill The Obligations Of The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. The United States Must Assume World Leadership To End Once And For All The Threat Of Nuclear War. It Is Our Moral Responsibility.

I Wanted To Be A Forest Ranger Or A Coal Man. At A Very Early Age, I Knew I Didn't Want To Do What My Dad Did, Which Was Work In An Office.

It Doesn't Interest Me To Be Harrison Ford. It Interests Me To Be Mike Pomeroy And Indiana Jones And Jack Ryan. I Don't Want To Be In The Harrison Ford Business. I Take What I Do Seriously, But I Don't Take Myself Seriously.

Nothing Shocks Me. I'm A Scientist.

I Was One Of The Few People Who Thought Star Wars Was Going To Work, And I Hadn't Even Seen Any Special Effects.

I Think It Turned Out To Be A Pretty Good Movie [42]. I Wouldn't Lie To You.

I Could Take Sean Connery In A Fight... I Could Definitely Take Him.

Chadwick Boseman Work As An Actor, I Think, Is Truly Remarkable, And I Had A Great Time Working With Him.

I Haven't Purposefully Set Out To Play Heroes. I'm Interested In Playing The Character Who Finds Himself In Extraordinary Circumstances. But He's Really Either Just Saving Himself Or Acting In The Service Of Something That's Important To Him.

I've Always Been Somewhere Down From The Top, So I've Never Had To Suffer Being Knocked Off The Top.

I Have The Ordinary Experience Of Having The Blender Bottom Come Off In My Room Upstairs. I Have The Ordinary Experience Of Being Anonymous When I'm In An Airplane Talking To Air-traffic Control, And They Don't Know Who They're Talking To. I Have A Lot Of Common Experiences. What's Important Is To Be Able To See Yourself, As Having Commonality With Other People And Not Determine, Because Of Your Good Luck, That Everybody Is Less Significant, Less Interesting, Less Important Than You Are.

I Was Never That Much A Focus Of Interest In My Career. I'm Aware Of That Now, Which Doesn't Give Me A Lot Of Pleasure.

Everything I Do, I'm Sort Of Half In, Half Out.

There Is No Child Left Within Me, None Whatsoever.

I Accrued Anger From People's Low Opinion Of Me And My Work, And For The Work I Might Be Capable Of.

Directing Is Too Hard, It Takes Too Much Time, And It Doesn't Pay Very Well.

I Had The Idea That The Film Would Be Much Better Served By A Branch Rickey Lookalike Than A Harrison Ford Lookalike. I Didn't Want The Audience To Go Into The Film Thinking That They Knew Me From Some Previous Experience In A Movie.

There Are A Lot Of Different Paths Through The Jungle, But...the Simplest Thing You Can Do Is Make Yourself Useful. Be Easy To Work With, Be A Hard Worker And Help People Get The Job Done. And Do It With As Much Passion And Quality As You Can.

I Enjoyed Carpentry, And It Was Very Good To Me For 12 Years.

Harrison Ford May Be Getting Old, But He Can Fight Like A 28 Year Old Man.

[in Relationships With A Directors] I Want To Be Able To Give And Take, And I Can't Name What It Is: Respect, Energy, Investment In The Task, Focus, Humor, Intelligence, But I Always Feel Responsible For Taking The Money.

An Icon Means Nothing To Me. I Don't Understand What It Means To Anybody Actually. It Seems Like A Word Of Convenience. It Seems To Attend To The Huge Success Of Certain Kinds Of Movies That I Did, But There's No Personal Utility In Being An Icon. I Don't Know What An Icon Does, Except Stand In A Corner Quietly Accepting Everyone's Attention. I Like To Work, So There's No Utility In Being An Icon.

Sometimes I Try To Improve The Language, The Lines, Or The Delivery, But I Don't Ad-lib Because I Think That Makes It Really Hard For Everybody Else Involved.

The Best Movies Are Made From A Point Of View Of An Understanding Of Human Nature And An Understanding Of History And An Understanding Of What Motivates People, Of What Makes A Good Movie From An Emotional Place.

I've Never Wanted To Be The Boss.

I Continue To Develop Some Things For Myself And Also Take Advantage Of Good Parts As They Come Along.

Romantic Love Is One Of The Most Exciting And Fulfilling Kinds Of Love And I Think There Is Potential For It At Any Stage Of Your Life.

The Trick Of This Thing And The Beauty Of This Thing Is That It's A Cowboy Movie First And Then Stuff Happens. Even After Stuff Happens It Doesn't Change - It Hasn't Suddenly Changed Into Another Kind Of Movie. It's Still A Cowboy Movie. And That's What's Incredible About It Because Nobody Has Done That Before, That's New Territory.

I Realized Early On That Success Was Tied To Not Giving Up.

Hard Work And A Proper Frame Of Mind Prepare You For The Lucky Breaks That Come Along -- Or Don't.

The Environment Has Become A Political, Polarizing Issue.

I Don't Mind Playing Older Characters. I Find It Interesting. There Are Parts I Couldn't Have Got When I Was 30 Years Old. So, It Continues To Interest Me In The Same Way That It Always Did.

My Goal Was Just To Work Regularly. I Didn't Ever Expect To Be Rich Or Famous. I Wanted To Be A Working Character Actor.

What I Observed About My Fellow Actors Was That Most Gave Up Very Easily.

I Didn't Play Much Ball. I Wasn't Much Of A Ball Fan.

That [film What's My Line] Was Very Useful To Me Because It Had Branch Rickey In A Social Situation. Every Other Bit Of Film [42] That I Had Was Him Making A Speech.

Los Angeles Is Where You Have To Be If You Want To Be An Actor. You Have No Choice. You Go There Or New York. I Flipped A Coin About It. It Came Up New York, So I Flipped Again. When You're Starting Out To Be An Actor, Who Wants To Go Where It's Cold And Miserable And Be Poor There?

I Had No Expectation Of The Level Of Adulation That Would Come My Way. I Just Wanted To Make A Living With A Regular Role In A Television Series.

There Have Been Times In My Life When I Have Felt I Was Lonely, But I Don't Think You Want To Live Your Life In Order To Mitigate Against Loneliness.

Parenting Is An Impossible Job At Any Age.

You Get A Sense Of Reference There. You Feel Part Of Something That's Got Order And Balance And Harmony To It. All The Distraction And Noise, All The Confusion Of Misplaced, Misdirected Energy Just Don't Happen There.

Balance And Harmony

[ Chadwick Boseman] Is A Remarkable Actor, And He's A Remarkable Person.

I Prefer To Be Part Of A Positive Statement. I'm Not Interested In The Psyche Of A Serial Killer. What I'm Interested In Is Creating A Situation In Which People Get Some Emotional Exercise, Which Makes Them Feel Like Human Beings And Makes Them Understand That They Are Part Of The Human Community With All Its Responsibilities.

I Believe That The Racial Injustice Which Existed Such A Short Time Ago Probably Would Have Persisted Longer If The Color Barrier Had Not Been Broken In Baseball.

I Don't Do A Huge Amount Of Physical Activity. I Play Tennis, I Work Out Sporadically, And I Eat Well And Take Care Of Myself.

I Played Maybe One And A Half Games Of Little League. The Whole Atmosphere Of Anxious Parents And More Anxious Children Was Just Too Much For Me.

American Graffiti Was The First Movie Where The Director Let Me Have Any Input. It Was The First Time Anyone Ever Listened To Me. George Thought My Character Should Have A Crew Cut, But I Wasn't Happy With That Idea. I'd Always Had Pretty Long Hair Back Then - In College, Particularly - So I Told George My Character Should Wear A Cowboy Hat. George Thought About It And He Remembered A Bunch Of Guys From Modesto, California, Who Cruised Around, Like My Character, And Wore Cowboy Hats, So It Turned Out That It Actually Fit The Movie.

For Some Directors, I'm The Actor From Hell.

Money Is Really Only Important If You Don't Have Any.

I Found Out That Drama Was A Fascinating Exercise As A Way To Get Out Of My Self And Into Somebody Else's Head.

'may The Force Be With You' Is Charming But It's Not Important. What's Important Is That You Become The Force - For Yourself And Perhaps For Other People.

I'm Ambitious For Is To Not Get Caught 'acting'. I Want To Really Feel The Role And Not Let People See The Process, Or To Let Them Stand Back And Admire It, Because I Think That Does Finally Get In The Way.

When I First Started Out, I Was A Bad Actor.

The Force Is Within You. Force Yourself.

I Just Don't Think Of Age And Time In Respect Of Years. I Have Too Much Experience Of People In Their Seventies Who Are Vigorous And Useful And People Who Are Thirty-five Who Are In Lousy Physical Shape And Can't Think Straight. I Don't Think Age Has That Much To Do With It.

I Rarely Play A Real Person, Because I Don't Think I'm A Good Imitator.

[on Being An Actor] .nothing More Than A Worker In A Service Occupation . It's Like Being A Waiter Or A Gas Station Attendant, But I'm Waiting On 6 Million People In A Week If I'm Lucky.

It's The Primordial Characters [of The Star Wars]. It's The Beautiful Princess And The Callow Youth And The Smartass That I Played And The Wise Old Warrior That Alec Guinness Played. And It Was A Fairy Tale. It Was A Fairy Tale.

I Was 35 When I First Hit With Star Wars. I Had Some Degree Of Maturity And Some Degree Of Experience, Yet Physically I Still Looked Young. That Had Been An Impediment Early On In My Career, But Then It Turned Out To Be An Advantage.

I Try To Preserve A Certain Amount Of Time Away From The Movies, So I Don't Allow Time To Do Those Smaller Parts That Might Give Me An Opportunity To Do More Seemingly 'artful' Things. Although, Having Said That, I Don't Feel Any Lack Of Noble Purpose If I Do A Film That's Commercial.

Trending Author

Gertrude Jekyll

Michelle Branch

Category