I don't get nervous when I'm directing a play. It's not like acting.
The film is made in the editing room.
I didn't really buy LPs or go to concerts.
Success isn't what makes you happy. It really isn't. Success is doing what makes you happy and doing good work and hopefully having a fruitful life. If I've felt like I've done good work, that makes me happy. The success part of it is all gravy.
I think therapy is a helpful thing. I think everyone knows it. You do it for your life, you do it for yourself, because you want to explore some things, and get at the bottom of some things. It's about your life, the quality of your life.
There is no pleasure that I haven't actually made myself sick on.
If you get a chance to act in a room that somebody else has paid rent for, then you're given a free chance to practice your craft.
Film's hard when you don't have any relationship with the director at all and you just show up. Then you really are just a gun for hire.
Good work is the only thing that would make me feel jealous or envious.
Well, I think everyone struggles with self-love.
I didn't go out looking for negative characters; I went out looking for people who have a struggle and a fight to tackle. That's what interests me.
I know I wasn't as handsome as some other guys, but I was OK with that.
Acting is so difficult for me that, unless the work is of a certain stature in my mind, unless I reach the expectations I have of myself, I'm unhappy. Then it's a miserable existence. I'm putting a piece of myself out there. If it doesn't do anything, I feel so ashamed. I'm afraid I'll be the kind of actor who thought he would make a difference and didn't. Right now, though, I feel like I made a little bit of difference.
I think I'm less anonymous than I was.
Learning how to die is therefore learning how to live.
Why you do something is always kind of a mystery to me.
I don't want to repeat myself. I'm not going to play a guy like Allen in Happiness again any time soon because I did that and I don't want to tarnish or dilute that film by doing it again, maybe less well.
My ideal weight is 205, actually.
Life's pretty funny when you're objectively on the outside looking at it.
The strange thing is I never thought I'd do films.
I think you should be serious about what you do because this is it. This is the only life you've got.
I think Magnolia is one of the best films I've ever seen and I can say that straight and out and anybody that disagrees with me I'll fight you to the death. I just think it is one of the greatest films I've ever been in and ever seen.
I have three children and I think I'm happy when I'm with them and they're okay. When I see them enjoying each other in front of me, and then they let me enjoy them in turn. That brings a feeling which I would say is happiness.
When you're playing someone who really lived, you carry a burden, a burden to be accurate. But it's one that you have to let go of ultimately.
A lot of people describe me as chubby, which seems so easy, so first-choice. Or stocky. Fair-skinned. Tow-headed. There are so many other choices. How about dense? I mean, I'm a thick kind of guy. But I'm never described in attractive ways. I'm waiting for somebody to say I'm at least cute. But nobody has.
My mum is incredibly intelligent.
I have a fine level of recognition in the business and among the acting community now, so I consider myself one of the lucky ones. If I didn't think that, there would be something wrong with me. I'm grateful and thankful for what I've got.
A self-awareness moment. All of a sudden everything he has done comes flashing into his mind, a self-criticism that is unbearable.
I would definitely say pleasure is not happiness. Because I think I kill pleasure. Like I take too much of it in, and therefore make it un-pleasurable, like too much coffee, and you're miserable.
I've worked with a lot of characters that are unhinged. I've played characters that are unhinged. That's, like, my job.
In film, you have to let go sometimes.
When you're playing someone who really lived, you carry a burden, a burden to be accurate.
I got into plays in high school then I ended up going to college for it.
Films are always a fiction, not documentary. Even a documentary is a kind of fiction.
Sometimes I take a temperature of things just because everyone else does. Especially when I'm doing a play. I want to know what people are thinking, positive or negative.
You have all the influence you choose to have.
The film is made in the editing room. The shooting of the film is about shopping, almost. It's like going to get all the ingredients together, and you've got to make sure before you leave the store that you got all the ingredients. And then you take those ingredients and you can make a good cake - or not.
There's nothing risky in talking about your personal life. People do it all the time.
Ultimately, all characters have some negative and positive energies. That's just how I see it. I didn't go out looking for negative characters; I went out looking for people who have a struggle and a fight to tackle. That's what interests me.
Creating something is all about problem-solving.
I have an awful memory, and I have a great memory. Meaning that, if I'm trying to remember something, I can't remember it. But my recall is fantastic.
The foibles of my body are pretty much out there in the work I do.
Creating anything is hard.
If I was a little bit younger I would worry more. I'd want to do one thing at a time but now I try to do a bunch of different things at a time if I can.
My mum's name is Marilyn O'Connor. She's here tonight and I would like if you see her for you to congratulate her because she brought up four kids alone and she deserves congratulations for that.
I've grown to really love musicals, you know?
There's something in the very small minutia of life that tells us something about the big, big picture that we see every day all over the place, and so I think the more specific and creative and revelatory you are in the micro, the more powerful the macro will be.
I know that obviously, that if you want to get the story, if you want to get close to somebody, if you want to find out what is really the truth or what's really interesting, you have to create a trust between these two things, between the journalist and the subject.
I try to live my life in such a way that I don't have any regrets. That's probably why I work so much. I don't want to feel I missed something important.
To act well isn't an easy thing.
Actors are responsible to the people we play.
You can look at anything as a cult. Churches are cults in their own way.
Acting's difficult for me because I think you have to be passionately involved in what you're doing.
Actors are responsible to the people we play. I don't label or judge. I just play them as honestly and expressively and creatively as I can.
I like to come to the set with very strong ideas and strong opinions about how to do things. And I like also dealing with somebody who's like that.
All over the world, young men and young women will always dream dreams.
My mother's a staunch feminist, so I grew up with very strong feminist messages. As a result, I battled her in my teenage years because my image of being a man was a deformed one.
There’s a period of time in your life when I kind of look back, and I’m like, was I happy, or was I just not aware?
The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.
Sometimes it's hard to say no. Ultimately, if you stick to your guns, you have the career that you want. Don't get me wrong. I love a good payday and I'll do films for fun. But ultimately my main goal is to do good work. If it doesn't pay well, so be it.
I feel like I made a little bit of difference.
Something that could bring you wealth and fame could also be your end, your undoing.
I got sober when I was 22 years old.
When you read, you think, and when you smoke, you think. It's a pleasurable thing, and not a duty.
Yeah, writers do hate writing.
Women are the life force we look at for their beauty.
I didn't have any idea that I would be able to have a career in film.
For me, acting is torturous, and it's torturous because you know it's a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, that's beautiful and I want that. Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great - well, that's absolutely torturous.
My favorite thing about acting is being alone and going through the scripts and working on it and getting ideas and asking myself questions, looking outside myself for them and researching and getting to the bottom of something and being creative with it as an actor and how to express it in a creative fashion. That's my favorite part. And, the actual acting of it.
No one wants to be pretentious about what they do or take it seriously, because that is just weird.
I was a breed of people who aren't capable of doing anything, really. At college I began to get the idea that being macho wasn't the accepted norm in the liberal world, and especially the world I entered into, which was the artistic world. I had a lot of problems with that because I was struggling with the need to be proud of being a man, which wasn't something I was feeling.
I think directors should be confident in their leadership capabilities. I think directors should be confident in what they want to do.
My love for the theater has always been a priority. That hasn't changed. I got into acting that way. The film work that came up was really a surprise.
I know some really great actors who are pretty judgmental people, pretty critical people. But they're great actors. When they're acting, that's the craft.
I've never been on a cruise.
Being with a kid always takes you to being a kid somehow, and they really are showing me a childhood I might not have had in some way.
My image of Jesus is someone who is exciting...Were he alive today, he would be causing havoc!
If all people are encouraged to actually see who they're coexisting with, or even if they're not coexisting with other people.It's like to look at the world you're in.
I think you gotta have an honesty and a humility about human nature and that it's not about you at the end of the day.
When you have a child, as anyone knows who has them, that's basically all you want to talk about.
If you're a human being walking the earth, you're weird, you're strange, you're psychologically challenged.
I had insecurities and fears like everybody does, and I got over it. But I was interested in the parts of me that struggled with those things.
I'm probably more personal when I'm acting than at any other time. More open, more direct. Because it allows me to be something that I can't always feel comfortable with when I'm living my own life, you know? Because it's make-believe.
People aren't going to throw the kind of money at certain people that they used to.
I like so many different kinds of music just because all I did was listen to the radio as a kid.
Vanity is something that will only get in the way of doing your best work, and ultimately if you're truly vain you care more about your work than how you look in your work. I actually consider myself a pretty vain guy when it comes to that.
I always knew where I needed to go but I sometimes had a problem getting there, so I had to work harder at it. Once in a while I'd wanna take off the blouse and heels because I'd get that "I just wanna be a guy" feeling I had when growing up.
I had a father who was a traveling salesman.
My soul is in good shape.
You must be really bad, because it is a puzzle. Creating anything is hard. It’s a cliché thing to say, but every time you start a job, you just don’t know anything. I mean, I can break something down, but ultimately I don’t know anything when I start work on a new movie. You start stabbing out, and you make a mistake, and it’s not right, and then you try again and again. The key is you have to commit. And that’s hard because you have to find what it is you are committing to.
Life is short. Time is short. As we get older, time does quicken. It's long, and it's long pertaining to that thought, that the past is not done with you because you can't rid of it.
Study, find all the good teachers and study with them, get involved in acting to act, not to be famous or for the money. Do plays. It's not worth it if you are just in it for the money. You have to love it.
People actually live with their id exposed. They're not good at concealing what's going on inside.
Frankly, I get much more sensitive about what's written about me than how I look in a photo. I'm so used to people seeing my image in plays and films that what they think about how I look is none of my business. If they says, "Hey, he doesn't look good," I'm like, Whatever, because I know I look different from day to day. But if you're up there putting your heart into something and people reject your performance, that's very painful. The written word can kick your ass.
Ultimately, I think writing is a mixture of craft, inspiration, and being incredibly, courageously explorative with yourself - and being brutally honest, too.
One person's religion is another person's cult.
When you're acting, you're subjective; when you're a director, you're more objective.You're kind of watching from the outside and helping others, and therefore I learn my mistakes through others, and also my assets through others.
The weight comes off, you know? If you stop with the bread and the pie, it really does. It really works.
To have that concentration to act well is like lugging things up staircases in your brain. I think that’s a thing people don’t understand. It is that exhausting. If you’re doing it well, if you’re concentrating the way you need to, if your will and your concentration and emotional and imagination and emotional life are all in tune, concentrated and working together in that role, that is just like lugging weights upstairs with your head... And I don’t think that should get any easier.
I've had to make the transition from sweeping in for 15 minutes, doing my stuff and clearing out, to carrying a movie for the duration - in a dress.
I think you ultimately have to love who you're playing. You have to have that kind of feeling. You have to have passion for the person.
I think good art, if I could be pretentious enough to say, I think good art deals with the micro to explain the macro.
You have to have a personal connection. You have to really want to do it, because if you don't, investing yourself personally, your thoughts, your emotions, yourself into a part, is something you're not going to want to do as much.
If I'm directing actors, I learn about acting that way. If I'm acting, I learn about directing that way. Producing is just something that's come about because there's projects I find interesting that I would like to help get done.
Ultimately what I'll do next is up in the air for me.
The ambition, the drive, the wanting to be the center of attention, the wanting to succeed... They're all inside me somewhere.
It's important to say that actors can't act alone, it's impossible. What we have to do is support each other.
Being unemployed is not good for an actor. No, it isn't, no matter how unsuccessful you are. Because you always remember getting fired from all the restaurants. You remember that stuff very, very strongly.
To be loved, I think, is the thing that gets you up in the morning.
In life, do you ever really know if you're missing an opportunity? No, you really don't.
I was probably finding my feet more than anybody. I really have to say I was more obsessed with myself faltering than anybody else.
Sometimes I have a great day of filming and sometimes the theater strikes me better. It just depends.
The drama nerd comes out in me when I'm in a theater.
When you become a parent, you look at your parents differently. You look at being a child differently. It's an awakening, a revelation that you have.
I think I would have drank myself to death, literally, if I didn't just stop, once and for all when I did. I am not ever going to preach to anyone about drugs or drinking. But, for me, when they were around, I had no self control.
Don't let people treat you like a cigarette, they only use you when they're bored and step on you when they're done. Be like drugs, let them die for you.
I work constantly but I work at a lot of different things. You know, I run a theater company in New York, I direct plays, act in plays, in movies, so I try to keep it eclectic.
Directing is a really kind of amazing thing, because you're helping others and, in the middle of that, you have to worry about yourself.
Sometimes I'm uncomfortable with the level of fame I've got! It all depends on the day and what's going on. I don't desire any more fame. I don't need it.
You know the circus performer who spins the plates in the air you know, and he'll spin six or seven plates in the air? Acting sometimes is kind of that guy spinning all those plates in the air but in your head and in your body.
Great talent admits shortcomings.
I always thought I'd be a New York theater actor, riding my bicycle to rehearsal. That was all I ever wanted.
My girlfriend's a costume designer in the theater.
I try not to plan that too much.
I've been reading a bunch of stuff lately - like Joseph Campbell - that has made me realize that people in our cultural, especially in the liberal community, often go in search of a foe. It's like we always need a hill to climb up or something to push against, or we feel as if we're not working constructively in the world.
