I don't concern myself with thinking ahead to the finished product. I focus more specifically on what the character is experiencing. Once you relieve yourself of the very arbitrary and always punishing pressure of what an audience is expecting you to...
There aren't many American directors here trying to direct a Japanese yakuza film. When you combine that with the fact that I don't speak much Japanese and this was an independent film I was financing myself - people were curious about what I was doi...
I suppose I'm always trying to break down the wall between my characters and myself. I'm trying to make the film as expressive and personal as I can, even if I can't explain, for example, how important it is for me to be Jewish.
I think when you're just counting on your voice, you actually need double the energy. I find myself acting out the scenes and being very physical while I'm recording because I think you can tell when someone is just sitting on a stool.
I taught myself to play the piano. I've always been able to play, the minute I could get my hands up. I've always wanted to play the piano. It's the only instrument I've ever really liked, and it's the only one that's ever interested me.
Several years ago, I was asked by a songwriter's association to go to Nashville - I think it involved some kind of award - and be part of the showcase. It was myself and Stevie Winwood and Michael McDonald and then some country people that I didn't k...
An exaltation of spirit lifted me, as it were, far above the earth and the sinful creatures crawling on its surface; and I deemed myself as an eagle among the children of men, soaring on high, and looking down with pity and contempt on the grovelling...
John Henry Lloyd is the man I gave the credit to for polishing my skills. He taught me how to play third base and how to protect myself. John taught me more baseball than anyone else.
I'm in deep in everything, every moment of the day. I create the systems and oversee every aspect of the execution. Every mark on a sculpture and every brush-stroke on a painting is in a controlled situation, exactly as they'd be if I'd have done the...
My parents said that I was nine months old and would throw myself out of the crib onto the floor continually. As soon as they left the room after putting me back in they'd hear a big bump and I'd be on the floor again.
It no longer makes me cry and die and tear myself to see her go because everything goes away from me like that now — girls, visions, anything, just in the same way and forever and I accept lostness forever.
I think it's important to be able to say that you did live a normal life and struggled to make ends meet. It all has to do with work ethic and how I apply myself to my awesome job now. I've always been used to working because I've been working since ...
Kris Kelvin: Well, anyway, my mission is finished. And what next? To return to Earth? Little by little everything will return to normal. I'll find new interests, new acquaintances, but I won't be able to devote all of myself to them.
The Writer: The freight woke up the other guys and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell them about the deer. But I didn't. That was the one thing I kept to myself. I've never spoken or written about it until just now.
I've proven I'm courageous. I'm gutsier than anybody; I've got a better imagination than anybody; I'm essentially more creative than any other actor I know, and I've proven I take risks. I don't think I need to prove anything to myself any more.
I can't separate the process of writing from the visual process. I'm speaking only for myself here, but I'm a highly visual writer. In my imagination, when I'm thinking of a scene, I think of every last detail of it: The space, the color palette, the...
Beetlejuice: I'm feeling a little, ooh, anxious if you know what I mean. It's been about six hundred years after all. I wonder where a guy, an everyday Joe like myself, can find a little *action*.
My career is a burden, but I can't just fade out like a pathetic sore loser. More often than not, I'm just making a fool of myself for the hundredth time, and that wasn't part of the plan, initially. I'd be happier not having any kind of public prese...
Through my films I'm eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don't know if I'm ever going to get there, but I'm slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I'm 85, I'll look back and say, 'All right, that about sums it...
When I look up at the screen and see myself I always have to laugh. Not because I think I'm doing a horrible job, quite the contrary, I just feel it's so surreal to feel like one person can entertain so many at one time.
I'm looking for laughs, you know? If it take me to flip over a table, if I have to go physical comedy, I will do it. But whatever the joke needs at that particular time, is where I'm dedicated to. I'm not into beating somebody down and beating myself...