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Film Quotes

“In the early days of my carer as an actor, I shared what was then the prevailing attitude of Negro performers :;that the content and form of a play or a film scenario was of little importance to us. What mattered was was the opportunity, which came so seldom to our folks ... Later I came to understand that the Negro artist could not view the matter simply in terms of of his individual interests, and that he had a responsibility to his people who rightfully resented the traditional stereotyped portrayals of Negros on stage and screen.”

“With films, I just scribble a couple of notes for a scene. You don't have to do any writing at all, you just have your notes for the scene, which are written with the actors and the camera in mind. The actual script is a necessity for casting and budgeting, but the end product often doesn't bear much resemblance to the script--at least in my case.”

“Stage actors are usually much more conscious of speaking up and making sure that everyone can hear in the back of the theatre; a film actor probably thinks of that a little less. Unfortunately, there's a style of acting going round, especially with the younger actors, where they talk without even moving their lip. Maybe it's because my hearing probably isn't what it was 40 years ago but I'm sitting there going "What did they say"?”

“With Batman&Robin, the fourth entry in the recent Batman movie series, the profitable franchise appears poised to take a nosedive. This film, which places yet another actor in the batsuit, has all the necessary hallmarks of a sorry sequel - pointless, plodding plotting; asinine action; clueless, comatose characterization; and dumb dialogue. Batman&Robin moves at a dizzying pace, yet goes absolutely nowhere.”

“I felt as if I was the brunt of some massive joke at my expense: Can you believe this loser can be connected to Marlon Brando and Katharine Hepburn? But through the years I have learned to tolerate and sometimes embrace the idea. People have asked me if I consider it an honour. Well, all it indicates is that I've been in a lot of movies with a lot of people. And besides that there are plenty of other actors that would work.”

“I've made a career over the last seventeen years of mostly playing men in uniform, especially cops. The one thing for an actor that is completely death is if you're bored, because that boredom will show in your work. So there was an inherent challenge in trying to keep it fresh, because it's something that I'm familiar with, but the real draw for me was at long last to work with Halle. She and I had come close to working on two other films together prior to this one that unfortunately had fallen apart for various reasons.”

“I watch a lot of different films. A lot of different performances and I find a lot of little things from the films or things that actors do or people in real life who have behaviors or idiosyncrasies that I like or find interesting and I try to remember that. And then I'll do a prayer. I'll do a prayer to ask the character or the spirit of the character to come and visit me. And let's work together.”

“Since I started making films, I've been a nut for dialogue. When I first saw Star Wars when I was 12 years old, I came home and recited all of the lines from it. Before I talked about Death Stars exploding and Tie Fighters I was talking about how funny Princess Leia was and how sarcastic Han Solo was. So to me that's always the most important thing, and I love hearing great actors say great lines.”

“Performance is made in the editing room, and I've come to see the truth in that - the idea that they say performances are usually made in the editing room because what you film is the raw material. I think just going through the process of saying, "Which take do we use? Why is that the take we want? I want that take can you edit again, I'm not sure that's the one, I think it's this one." And just because you go through that process, I think somehow it's made me sort of more open about the [actor's] possibilities.”

“You don't cast the animal, per se. You have an animal trainer who looks for several of them. That is a different experience than dealing with actors. That is just difficult. It is what you expect from an animal on the set. You just run a lot of film and prompt it to do the right thing, but sit through it doing all the wrong things first. It's just unbelievably boring, frustrating and painstaking to shoot.”

“The way I see the job, my definition of it, is to create characters to the best of your ability and then fit into what's trying to be accomplished in the general framework of the film. I think that's whether you're doing this- even if you're doing musical theater. That's what I think an actors job is. I don't know. I like to think what an actors job is is to create characters.”

“When you start out as an actor, you read a script thinking of it at its best. But that's not usually the case in general, and usually what you have to do is you have to read a script and think of it at its worst. You read it going, "OK, how bad could this be?" first and foremost. You cannot make a good film out of a bad script. You can make a bad film out of a good script, but you can't make a good film out of a bad script.”