I'm starting to teach now: I teach in the graduate film program at NYU and next year I'm going to be teaching at Los Angeles at the film program and English program at UCLA.
I would like to be able to be both a film actor and a stage actor - to be an American actor in the style of a lot the English actors who do films. They are these wonderful actors who can do everything.
I have Czech, I have Russian, I have English, I have Italian. Uh, what am I missing? A little bit of Irish. The Russian is Jewish. So I'm your classic American mutt.
The title song of David Bowie's 'Young Americans' is one of his handful of classics, a bizarre mixture of social comment, run-on lyric style, English pop and American soul.
His head was boiled, impaled upon a pole and raised above London Bridge. So ended the life of Thomas More, one of the few Londoners upon whom sainthood has been conferred and the first English layman to be beatified as a martyr.
English writing tends to fall into two categories - the big, baggy epic novel or the fairly controlled, tidy novel. For a long time, I was a fan of the big, baggy novel, but there's definitely an advantage to having a little bit more control.
When I began to travel around the country, I would notice in places like Los Angeles, Chicago, Phoenix and even Texas that Latinos didn't want to speak Spanish. You would ask a question, only to be answered in English.
John Robie: I only regret one thing. Danielle Foussard: That you never asked me to marry you? John Robie: No, that I never taught you better English.
John Milton: [chanting in Latin] Diaboli virtus in lumbis est. Diaboli virtus in lumbis est. [continues chant in English] John Milton: The virtue of the devil is in his loins.
English: Sometimes I think that's all this place is. One... long... count. The prisoners count the hours, the bulls count the prisoners and the king bulls count the counts.
Capt. Bart Mancuso: You, you speak English? Red October Officer: Yes, sir. Capt. Bart Mancuso: Get your butt over here!
Sushi Bar Assistant: [in Japanese] I'm not bald, okay? I shaved my head. Sushi Bar Assistant: [in English] Understand?
Prince Feisal: To be great again, it seems that we need the english... or... T.E. Lawrence: Or? Prince Feisal: What no man can provide, Mr. Lawrence. We need a miracle.
[after arriving in the deserted concentration camp in a tank, trying to speak to an Italian boy in English] U.S. Tank Soldier: You have no idea what I'm saying, do you?
Miss Froy: I never think you should judge any country by its politics. After all, we English are quite honest by nature, aren't we?
[after hearing of his father's death] Gareth Peirce: [With tears in her eyes] Well, I think they ought to take the word 'compassion' out of the English dictionary.
Jules: I don't know why, I just thought he'd be European or something because he... Vincent: Yeah, man, he's about as European as fuckin' English Bob.
Tracy Lord: English history has always facinated me. Cromwell, Robin Hood, Jack the Ripper. Where did he teach? You're father, I mean.
Sophie: [in broken English] I am six months in the... in here, in U.S., and so I eat more good now than in my life.
Little Bill Daggett: [talking to English Bob, and refering to a book] That you here, Bob, on the cover? "The Duck of Death?" W.W. Beauchamp: Duke. It's the Duke. "Duke of Death."
The old process of social assimilation used to be mainly about English new money - generated in London, the mucky, brassy North or the colonies - buying those houses and restoring them, and doing the three-generation thing, mouldering into the landsc...
