Film Quotes

Film is an illusion. Fame is ephemeral. Faith and family are what endure.

I was speaking to Ridley Scott the other day and he makes a film every 18 months. He's amazing really.

A definite highlight was doing 'The Brothers McMullen.' Shooting that movie was such a joy - and then we wound up winning the Sundance Film Festival. That big-break moment is visceral. It happens once in a decade, maybe once in a lifetime.

Personally speaking there's only so long you can go from film to film to film. There's an inspiration an actor gets from the stage.

We found in 'The Matrix' that people were willing to accept something more. It was a smarter film.

I was able to do To Sleep with Anger, a very powerful film about African Americans, their spirituality, and the things that happened within a small community and a family.

I've always been interested in the camera and the effects of it - that's what drew me to film in the first place.

Foxes was a movie that didn't do a lot of business but it didn't do too badly critically and eventually they offered me other things. The interesting thing was that next I tried a film called Star Man, which Michael Douglas was producing.

What career? A man's got a body of film of about four movies in about 10 years or something. I do it because I think I can do a good job of something and I'll enjoy it, do it, and sort of vanish. I don't want to be an actor for hire.

One might have thought that the most significant change in the film industry that would come about with a transition from the communist economy to capitalism would fundamentally concern the sources of funding.

I still don't have a publicist. If I'm in a film, you have an obligation to promote it, I'll do as much as I can.

The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure.

It's difficult to do a genre film well, and it doesn't matter if you're talking vampire movies or 'Dawn of the Dead' or 'The Thing' or 'Escape From New York.' Those kind of movies, they understand what the old-school B-movie is supposed to be, they get the throwback of it.

If anything could have pulled me out of retirement, it would have been an Indiana Jones film.

In film, you are a totally different person than in the video.

It's hard to see a film that's been made from a book that you really loved because it's such a different experience.

Then I became interested in drama, and almost by accident, I drifted into film.

I think if you look at Sam Raimi and Jim Cameron, those guys know things about filmmaking that almost nobody knows anymore. They are students of film from when they handmade films themselves, you know cut films with their own hands and razor blades and tape.

I came to New York to be an actor and I became a film producer first.

I'm doing something called 'Olivia Twisted,' that will start next year. There may be something in between, but right now, that's the one that I'm slated to do next year. That's a very ultra-modern version of 'Oliver Twist,' and it's female-driven. It's an action film, and it's kind of dark and gritty.

In this way, some film schools can be destructive.

I stole a piece of the chess set on the first film. I took a piece of the treasure out of Bellatrix's vault on this film. And I've taken my wand and I've got my cloak.

I miss animation very passionately. Not continuously, but every once in a while I would die to do another film.

Movie SF is, by definition, dumbed down - there have only been three or four SF movies in the history of film that aspire to the complexity of literary SF.

Where people are now in terms of the economic crisis, they're looking at what we think is the bottom, and I think that's when people look to film and to spirituality.

I care about the connection with the audience. Film is such a powerful medium. Movies can change the way people think.

A lot of film directors are quite scared of actors. They are a bit of a nightmare sometimes, but I like them. It looks like cunning, but you try to get extra things from them all the time, by stealth, by making them feel confident, so they trust you and you can push a bit.

In film, you have to let go sometimes.

Each new film is like a trial. Before I step in front of the camera, I do not know whether I am going to fall or whether I am going to fly - and that is exactly the way I want it to stay.

I think everyone goes through chapters in their life and there was a time when I wasn't feeling terribly positive about what I was contributing to film, or wasn't feeling as if I was going in the direction I wanted and I re-evaluated what I was doing.