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Quotes
Discussing possible casting choices Mel
Gibson and Nicolas
Cage for Three Kings (1999) before he had signed to the movie:
"Luckily, both those guys were tied and gagged in my apartment, and
that was a problem for the casting department.
After doing One Fine Day
and playing a pediatrician on ER, I'll never have kids. I'm going to
have a vasectomy.
America
can't beat anyone anymore.
Do
you want the truth or the politically correct version? The truth is that
I go plastic, it's so much easier. And I like to put the bags over my
head at night when I sleep, which I think all the kids at home should
try. Kidding!!
I
decided if I walk outside and get hit by a bus, everybody'll say, 'He
crammed a load into 34 years.'
I
don't believe in happy endings, but I do believe in happy travels,
because ultimately, you die at a very young age, or you live long enough
to watch your friends die. It's a mean thing, life.
I
don't care. Charlton Heston is the head of the National Rifle
Association. He deserves whatever anyone says about him.
I
don't like to share my personal life... it wouldn't be personal if I
shared it.
I
grew up in the world of bad television, on my dad's sets and then as a
young schmuck on dating shows and so on.
I
resolve not to drink liquids before donning the Bat-suit.
I'd
think,' In a relationship, we should never have his kind of fight.'
Then, instead of figuring out how to make it work, I looked for a way to
get out of it. The truth is, you shouldn't be married if your that kind
of person.
I'm
a Method actor. I spent years training for the drinking and carousing I
had to do in this film.
I'm
certainly the last person to give advice on, well, anything.
I'm
not smart enough and I don't know enough about what's going on.
I'm
only two years older than Brad Pitt, but I look a lot older, which used
to greatly frustrate me. It doesn't anymore. I don't have to fit into
that category and get trounced by Tom Cruise and Brad.
I'm
really white trash.
I'm
the flavor of the month.
People
thought I was Tom and Nicole's bodyguard. They'd come up and go,
"Is it okay if I go up and ask for an autograph? It was good. I'd
charge 'em three bucks a person. Yeah, you gotta make some money off of
that."
Run
for office? No. I've slept with too many women, I've done too many
drugs, and I've been to too many parties.
The
funniest thing is that all the things every director goes through, I
thought I could shortcut, but there was no getting around those issues.
The
government itself is running exactly like the Sopranos and they sit back
and they make deals. And they say okay, 'I'm going do this: France,
you're getting the pipelines.'
The
only failure is not to try.
There's
no connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq.
They
say I was a bad Batman, that it was my fault, that I buried the
franchise. But the truth is, it was a big project. I was pretty
intimidated in that world. I did the best I could in the situation I was
given.
We
moved away from what we were going after which was the al-Qaeda and
there's no connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq, which we know, we spent
a lot of time trying to prove it and it didn't happen. And we're going
to go into a war and we're going to kill a lot of innocent people.
We're
picking on people we can beat.
When
you're young you believe it when people tell you how good you are. And
that's the danger, you inhale. Everyone will tell you you're a genius,
which you are not, and if you understand that, you win.
You
have only a short period of time in your life to make your mark, and I'm
there now.
You
make a lot of films, do you? You make a lot of films yourself? Yeah, I'd
like to see you make a film first before you get to talk about it. What
a jerk.
I don't like to share my personal life... it
wouldn't be personal if I shared it.
I was too busy breaking up Tom and Nicole's
marriage. -on the fact he had nothing to do with the breakup of Julia
Roberts and Benjamin Bratt.
Speaking about the 2003 Iraq war: You can't
beat your enemy anymore through wars; instead you create an entire
generation of people revenge-seeking. These days it only matters who's
in charge. Right now that's us -- for a while at least. Our opponents
are going to resort to car bombs and suicide attacks because they have
no other way to win. ...I believe (Rumsfeld) thinks this is a war that
can be won, but there is no such thing anymore. We can't beat anyone
anymore.
It's not about an opening weekend. It's
about a career, building a set of films you're proud of. Period.
Ninety percent of films are pretty mediocre,
but they have a built-in audience and open on 3,000 screens.
Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind (2002)
bombed. But I can take it. Most of the films I've done haven't done
particularly well. I'm surprised I'm continuing to work.
Directing is really exciting. In the end,
it's more fun to be the painter than the paint.
I don't believe in happy endings, but I do
believe in happy travels, because ultimately...you die at a very young
age, or you live long enough to watch your friends die. It's a mean
thing, life.
We've been trying to push our involvement
within the studio system, sort of push the things that we've learned
from foreign and independent films through the 80s and push those things
back into the studio system. Like Out of Sight (1998) isn't your
standard studio film by any means; Three Kings (1999) wasn't the' standard
Warner Bros. kind of film.
directors are the captains of the ship, and
it's your job as the lead actor to make sure that the rest of the cast
understand that by doing whatever he says.
See, the first thing about actors is, you're
just trying to get a job; and you audition and audition and you finally
get them. And you still consider yourself an auditioning actor. I
auditioned for One Fine Day (1996), I wasn't offered that. So you're
still in that 'hey, I'm just trying to get a job' thing. Then, you get
to the point where, if you decide to do it, then they'll make the film.
That's a different kind of responsibility, and it usually takes a couple
of films to catch up. And then you have to actually pay attention to the
kind of films that you're making.
You got to think of things at their worst,
not at their best. And Out of Sight (1998) was the first time where I
had a say, and it was the first good screenplay that I'd read where I
just went, 'That's it'. And even though it didn't do really well box
office-wise - we sort of tanked again - it was a really good film. And I
realised from that point on that it was strictly screenplay first. And
then it becomes easier because once you eliminate the idea of doing a
vehicle ... believe me, there's nobody who's encouraging us to make
these films, not agents, not ... we're not getting paid for these
things, and it's not like we're going to make a mint.
On making Ocean's 11 (2001) : It was the
easiest shoot ever for any actor, and we all knew it when we were doing
it. We were like, it's never going to be better than this. He [Steven
Soderbergh] was in hell because it was a really complicated film to put
together. We were like, we're in Las Vegas, we go to work at one in the
afternoon and we gotta be done by six at night. Six hours of work.
Steven was editing all night.
I'm a hybrid. I succeed in both worlds. I
hope that selling out on 'Ocean's Eleven' is not such a bad deal. The
trade-off is, I get to go make something uncommercial that will probably
lose money.
Steven [Soderberg] and I have a great
relationship inside the studio system. We make the kinds of films we
want and commercial films at the same time. Steven and I have lost a lot
of money. We are way in the hole. But this is not a day job. I've got
some cash. I have a nice house in Italy. I do OK.
It's true information is harder to get these
days. When I was growing up there were three networks - three news
shows, delivering the same information. You took that information into
your home and you formed your own opinions. Now we have 130 channels.
You go to the channel that plays to your belief pattern. We start with
different sets of facts, it's more polarizing.
I'm not a snob, I like entertaining films as
well. But when you do a film like this, or like Three Kings - films that
get you in a bit of trouble - it's fun to open up a debate. [on Good
Night and Good Luck]
I think, if you listen to the piece, I
certainly did not talk about wanting to kill myself. I was talking about
the idea of living for years in that kind of pain. Please don't use my
words out of context. [Responding to media reports that he had
contemplated suicide following surgery]
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