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When I Was In High School, I Was The Guy Directing Plays After Class. I Started My First Theater Company At 19, And My Second Theater Company At 21. I've Always Been A Guy Who Doesn't Do Well With The Passive Nature Of Being An Actor.

-Matthew Lillard

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When I Was In

Matthew Lillard

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When I Was In High School, I Was The Guy Directing Plays After Class. I Started My First Theater Company At 19, And My Second Theater Company At 21. I've Always Been A Guy Who Doesn't Do Well With The Passive Nature Of Being An Actor.

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Every Character Lives In Ever Actor And If You're Doing Your Job Right, You're Just Accessing That Part Of Your Fantasy Life. I Can Kill Someone Just As Quickly As I Can Have Sex With Someone. You Can Switch That Instinct, No Matter What - You Can Pretend Anything.

Being Onstage Is Like Being Rock Star. Whereas If You're Doing A Movie, It's Such A Confined Space. You Know, You Do A Comedy, It's So Hard, Too, 'cause With A Comedy, There's No Vocal Reaction, There's No Energy That You Get Back That Spurs You On To Be Funnier Because Everyone Has To Be Quiet.

When I Was In High School, I Was The Guy Directing Plays After Class. I Started My First Theater Company At 19, And My Second Theater Company At 21. I've Always Been A Guy Who Doesn't Do Well With The Passive Nature Of Being An Actor.

A Lot Of Times, As A Clown, You Find Acting For A Reason. It's A Way To Exercise Yourself. If You're Funny, You Test Yourself.

I Think Everyone Is Given Drama, By Virtue Of The Fact That We All Have Drama In Our Lives, But Not Everyone Can Make People Laugh.

How Much Do You Have To Pay Someone To Be In A George Clooney/alexander Payne Film? Nothing!! Because Everyone In The World Wants To Be A Part Of It. Therefore You Pay Nothing. And That Continues Until You Become Something They Need... I'm Not That Kind Of Actor. I'm Blue Collar And Very Replaceable.

Being An Actor, When You Sign Onto A Project - Whether It's Good, Bad, Or Indifferent - You Kind Of Fall In Love With It. You Fall In Love With The Experience, You Fall In Love With The Memories.

Falling In Love

You May Not Have Faith In My Friend Fate, But My Friend Fate Has Faith In You.

Nothing Would Make My Kids Happier Than To Do Another Movie.

It's Always Fun To Play A Bad Guy Because You Get More To Do. It's More Arch. There's More Energy To Throw Into It.

I'm Almost 40, So It's An Awkward Time In My Career. You Kind Of Hope It Comes Through And, If Not, I'll Be A Waiter. Awesome.

I've Really Enjoyed The Independent Film World. I've Had A Blast. But, The Reality Is That I Really Want To Make Bigger Movies. If I Could Make Movies That Carry Great Characters And Great Performances And Great Pathos, And Can Have An Explosion Or Two, That Would Be Fine With Me.

I Like Doing Family Films.

Something Like 'without A Paddle' Does Really Well At The Box Office And I'm Like, 'oh, Here We Go.' In 'without A Paddle' I'm The Romantic Lead - Great! A Comedy And That's What America Wants. Then It Did Nothing For Me And I Went Into Kind-of A Work Abyss. I Just Didn't Get Another Shot.

The Older I Get, The More I Can't Stand Violence And Have A Hard Time With Seeing People Die In Horrific Ways. It Gets Harder And Harder To Watch And Deal With That Stuff.

I Got Into A Bad Jag Of Movies That Helped Pay The Rent And I Thought Would Help Further Me Along.

Hollywood Used To Be Run By Artists And People Who Loved Artists... People Who Wanted To Make Movies For All The Right Reasons. For The Love. The Art. To Tell Stories. Yes To Make Money As Well, But It Was About Both. Now I Feel, It's Mostly About Bottom Line And Making Money.

For Better Or Worse, I Take My Acting Seriously. I May Not Have Been In The Best Movies Ever Made, But I Take It Deathly Serious, And I Love Being An Actor.

Every Kid's Dream Is To Be A Great Actor.

I Learned A Lot, In Terms Of Inspiring People. It Became Very Clear To Me, Very Early On, That Directing A Movie Was A Lot Like Being In A Theater Company.

Character Actors Are Becoming A Thing Of The Past. They're Just Going By The Wayside. They're Just Cutting Through That Caliber Of Acting.

You Can Inspire People To Give You Greatness, Or You Can Micro-manage Them Into Your Own One Specific Kernel Of An Idea. To Me, I Think That When You Inspire People To Give Their Best, Then You're Going To Get The Best Result.

If I Could Act In Theater, My Whole Life, And Never Act In Film Or Television Again, And Just Direct The Rest Of My Life, I Would Gladly Do That.

As A Kid, As A Young Actor, I Really Wanted To Pop. I Wanted To Create Something Different. I Wanted To Be Sean Penn, But I Didn't Have All The Words To Be Sean Penn. But I Was Trying To Do Something Different In Every Role.

When You Go From Movie To Movie, It's Like Going From Family To Family. You Work With People For Really Intense Hours On Really Long Days And A Bond Happens. So Even When A Movie Is Terrible, You Love It.

You Become Funny For A Reason. I Became An Actor Because That's Who I Was, Nothing Else - It Was The Only Thing I Was Good At. You Become A Clown And You Make People Laugh Because A) It Protects You From Everything, And B) It's This Validating Force In Your Life. And When You're 12 And 13 Years Old, You Need Validation And You're Lost And You're Kind Of Floating And You Suffer From A Severe Learning Disability And You're Overweight And You Have Glasses... You Become Funny For A Reason.

So Much Of Hollywood Is About Who The People You Work With Are.

I'm Not A Broad Comedy Guy. I've Been Funny In Movies, But I'm Not A Comedian. I'm An Actor Who's Sometimes Funny.

I Was Like, What The Hell Is My Life Coming To? I'm A Trained Actor! I've Done Shakespeare And Here I Am Having Farting Contests With An Imaginary Dog!

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Charlie Brown's Good. I Always Had A Little Crush On That Lucy. I Thought She Was Kind Of A Hot Little Brunette.

I've Always Been A Guy That Doesn't Do Well Waiting For People To Say, "you Can Act." It's Always Been A Part Of Me.

I Don't Go To Parties. I Don't Go To Clubs. My Friends And I Don't Go Drinking, We Play D&d. I'm Still A Weird Entity In The World.

My Tone And My Style Are Reflected In The Movies I Choose To Make. I Want To Make Big Movies. My Dream Is To Be Jon Favreau Or Ben Affleck.

The More Lines I Have, In General, The Worse A Movie Is. It's Very Rare That I Get Say Great Things In Fantastic Movies. So If You See Me As Like, Number One On A Call Sheet? In General, That Movie Is Pretty Bad.

I Fired A Bunch Of People And Kind Of Went Back To My Roots. I Fired My Agent - I Had This Big, Fancy Agent And A Big Fancy Manager And A Big Fancy Lawyer - And I Went Back To My First Agent And Said, "i Want To Go Back To Just Being An Actor."

When You're Making An Independent Film What You Don't Have In Time And Money You Have To Make Up With Creativity And Diligence.

Now, More Then Ever, We Have The Ability To Make Films For Almost Nothing And That's Broken Down All Barriers Of Entry. I Think It's A New Golden Age Of Film-making. With That, There Needs To Be The Ability To Recoup Investment Dollars, People Need To Make Money.

My First Love Is Acting, But The Reality Is That I Just Don't Get Too Many Opportunities To Stretch, And Grow, And Inspire Myself As An Actor, Certainly Not In Terms Of Where I Make Money. Yeah, I Can Go Off And Do A Play, But The Reality Is As A Profession, Directing Is Exponentially More Satisfying.

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The Stage Is A Training Ground And It's Where You Learn What's Funny And What's Successful.

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