Quotes

Am I a romantic? I've seen Wuthering Heights ten times. I'm a romantic.

Anything I've done up till May 27th 1999 was kind of an illusion, existing without living. My daughter, the birth of my daughter, gave me life.

As a teenager I was so insecure. I was the type of guy that never fitted in because he never dared to choose. I was convinced I had absolutely no talent at all. For nothing. And that thought took away all my ambition too.

For me, ambition has become a dirty word. I prefer hunger. To be hungry-great. To have hopes, dreams-great.

France, and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing though is that people there know how to live! In America they've forgotten all about it. I'm afraid that the American culture is a disaster.

I am doing things that are true to me. The only thing I have a problem with is being labeled.

I don't pretend to be captain weird. I just do what I do.

I guess I'm attracted to these off beat roles because my life has been a bit abnormal. The only thing I have a problem with is being labeled.

I pretty much try to stay in a constant state of confusion just because of the expression it leaves on my face.

I remember in that red leisure suit I sort of felt like a Pizza Hut employee, and the white one was the ultimate, with the white turtleneck collar, that was the ultimate in bad taste.

I think the thing to do is enjoy the ride while you're on it.

I was ecstatic they re-named 'French Fries' as 'Freedom Fries'. Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots.

I would do anything Tim [Burton] wanted me to. You know - have sex with an aardvark... I would do it.

I'm not Blockbuster Boy.

I'm not sure I'm adult yet.

I'm shy, paranoid, whatever word you want to use. I hate fame. I've done everything I can to avoid it.

If there's any message to my work, it is ultimately that it's OK to be different, that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.

It's all kinds of these profound things crashing on you when your child arrives into the world. It's like you've met your reason to live.

It's good to experience Hollywood in short bursts, I guess. Little snippets. I don't think I can handle being here all the time, it's pretty nutty.

Marlon Brando is maybe the greatest actor of the last two centuries. But his mind is much more important than the acting thing. The way that he looks at things, doesn't judge things, the way that he assesses things. He's as important as, uh... who's important today? Jesus, not many people... Stephen Hawking!

That's the interesting thing about becoming a father. Suddenly you universally have something in common with other people. I can be sitting next to a very straight, humorless businessman or stockbroker type on an airplane and we'll just start talking about kids. And that conversation last three or four hours.

The beauty, the poetry of the fear in their eyes. I didn't mind going to jail for, what, five, six hours? It was absolutely worth it.

The fact that I am the dad is the most surprising thing. I love my family very much. And here's the part where I become the cliche father: I have never in my life thought it was possible to feel such deep love, such an incredible connection to this amazing little human being. She's an angel.

The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants.

The quality of life is so different in France. There is the possibility of living a simple life. I would never contemplate raising my daughter in LA. I would never raise any child there.

There are necessary evils. Money is an important thing in terms of representing freedom in our world. And now I have a daughter to think about. It's really the first time I've thought about the future and what it could be.

Trips to the dentist - I like to postpone that kind of thing.

With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it's just not acting. It's lying.

You use your money to buy privacy because during most of your life you aren't allowed to be normal.

Anything I've done up till 27 May, 1999 was kind of an illusion, existing without living. My daughter, the birth of my daughter, gave me life.

You use your money to buy privacy because during most of your life you aren't allowed to be normal.

I don't pretend to be captain weird. I just do what I do.

One of the most incredible moments I've ever had was sitting in Vincent [Price]'s trailer... I was showing him this first-edition book I have of the complete works of Poe, with really amazing illustrations. Vincent was going nuts over the drawings, and he started talking about 'The Tomb of Ligeia.' Then he closed the book and began to recite it to me in this beautiful voice, filling the room with huge sounds. Such passion! I looked in the book later, and it was verbatim. Word perfect. It was a great moment. I'll never forget that.

The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants.

I was ecstatic when they re-named 'French Fries' as 'Freedom Fries.' Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots.

America is dumb. It's like a dumb puppy that has big teeth that can bite and hurt you, aggressive. My daughter is four, my boy is one. I'd like them to see America as a toy, a broken toy. Investigate it a little, check it out, get this feeling and then get out.

Taken in context, what I was saying was that, compared to Europe, America is a very young country and we are still growing as a nation. It is a shame that the metaphor I used was taken so radically out of context and slung about irresponsibly by the news media. There was no anti-American sentiment. In fact, it was just the opposite. I am an American. I love my country and have great hopes for it. It is for this reason that I speak candidly and sometimes critically about it. I have benefited greatly from the freedom that exists in my country and for this I am eternally grateful.

France and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing though is that people there know how to live! In America they've forgotten all about it. I'm afraid that the American culture is a disaster.

Captain Jack Sparrow is like a cross between Keith Richards and Pepe Le Pew.

I can remember when I finished 'Edward Scissorhands,' looking in the mirror as the girl was doing my make-up for the last time and thinking -- it was like the 90th or 89th day of shooting -- and I remember looking and going, 'Wow, this is it. I'm saying goodbye to this guy, I'm saying goodbye to Edward Scissorhands.' You know, it was kind of sad. But in fact, I think they're all still somehow in there.

"With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it's just not acting. It's lying.

The only gossip I'm interested in is things from the Weekly World News - 'Woman's bra bursts, 11 injured.' That kind of thing.

I'm an old-fashioned guy... I want to be an old man with a beer belly sitting on a porch, looking at a lake or something.

I don't know, maybe I just read too much Dr. Seuss as a kid."

Am I a romantic? I've seen 'Wuthering Heights' ten times. I'm a romantic.

Talking on the Sleepy Hollow (1999) set about what it was like being dragged behind a carriage in the woods: "I wasn't afraid of getting hurt. I was just afraid that the horses may relieve themselves on the journey.

I'm shy, paranoid, whatever word you want to use. I hate fame. I've done everything I can to avoid it.

When kids hit 1 year old, it's like hanging out with a miniature drunk. You have to hold onto them. They bump into things. They laugh and cry. They urinate. They vomit.

This is a rumor-filled society and if people want to sit around and talk about whom I've dated, then I'd say they have a lot of spare time and should consider other topics... or masturbation.

The character I've played, that I've responded to, there has been a lost-soul quality to them.

Sure, I find it touching, honestly, but awards are not as important to me as when I meet a 10-year-old kid who says, 'I love Captain Jack Sparrow' ... That's real magic for me.

The term 'serious actor' is kind of an oxymoron, isn't it? [Like] 'Republican party' [or] 'airplane food.'

On a film you start to get closer and closer with the people you're working with, and it becomes like this circus act or this traveling family.

If you turn on the television and see the horrors that are happening to people in the world right now, I think there's no better time to strive to have some kind of hope through imagination. I think it's a time to close your eyes and try to make a change, or at least hope to make a change, or we're going to explode.

I suppose nowadays it's all a question of surgery, isn't it? Of course the notion is beautiful, the idea of staying a boy and a child forever, and I think you can. I have known plenty of people who, in their later years, had the energy of children and the kind of curiosity and fascination with things like little children. I think we can keep that, and I think it's important to keep that part of staying young. But I also think it's great fun growing old.

All the little films I've done that were perceived by Hollywood as these obscure, weird things, I always thought could appeal to a larger audience. I mean, box office is such a mystery to me that I can't... you know... I have enough -trouble doing my own gig. 

I think it's an actor's responsibility to change every time. Not only for himself and the people he's working with, but for the audience. If you just go out and deliver the same dish every time...it's meatloaf again...you'd get bored. I'd get bored.

We had been shooting Charlie for about a month, and I was beginning to get nervous because there weren't any phone calls. I called my agent and asked, Has no one called from the studio to complain or say, 'Hey, what's he doing?' or 'Hey, he's freaking us out?' And when she said no, I thought, 'Christ, I'm not doing enough! Something's wrong!' Then some of the studio brass came over to the set, and they were sitting in my trailer and I was all decked out as Wonka with the little bangs. And I just had to know. So I said, 'Okay, who was the first one, when you started seeing the dailies, that got a little worried?' And there was this beautiful 30-second silence. And [Warner Bros. president] Alan Horn finally said, 'Yeah, that was me.' I felt better instantly.

Hearing about that was disappointing, but I can understand where he's coming from, I guess. The one thing I didn't understand was that apparently he was quoted as saying 'Well, they just did this for money.' Well, hey, man, where have you been? When didn't they ever do anything for money? Nobody's ever made a film in the history of cinema where they weren't expecting some return on their dough.

On his daughter, Lily-Rose: I see this amazing, beautiful, pure angel-thing wake up in the morning, and nothing can touch that. She is the only reason to wake up in the morning, the only reason to take a breath. Everything else is checkers.

He can ask me everything. If he wants me to have sex with an aardvark in one of his next movies, then I will do that..

You know what was traumatizing, what was very, very strange in terms of this film I directed a few years back called The Brave. Well, I guess I wouldn't say traumatizing, but I would say weird: at the premiere of the film the reception of it was beyond any expectation that I had. I had no idea I'd be looking at Bertolucci or Antonioni sitting there watching my film. And then to receive the applause that my film got, it was so incredible. And then the next day the majority of the American press, just turn it into this horrible thing. Once again, everybody is entitled to their opinion, man. Maybe it's a bad film? Maybe it's a good film? To me it's just a film. It's something I needed to make.

I started out as a guitarist in the early Eighties. I hooked up with a guy who idolized James Dean and he gave me a copy of the Dean biography, 'The Mutant King', which I thought was really interesting. While reading the book, I watched Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and I thought, 'Wow, this guy really has something', and I was hooked. I wasn't really into acting at the time - but James Dean was the catalyst.

All original content , Copyright ©2004-2006 WestLord.com , All Rights Reserved