I was not only typecast as a Russian, but I was typecast as Yakov Smirnoff. This is understandable, and I was very happy to get the roles, but it would be nice to be in a movie where I could be someone else.
The moment you sense someone is making something because they think people are gonna buy it or like it, it's just so phony! The public has a nose for phony like nobody else.
It sounds kind of stupid, but I've never not wanted to be a musician. It's been inside me since I was little so I don't know what else I would do.
The one thing coaches cannot tolerate... is the individual who grows arrogant because he excelled at a lower level and believes he has nothing else to learn.
I've never traveled to promote anything I've been in. I've only been to about two or three premieres. The way I work, I do bits, and then I'm off to something else, whether it's theater or another project.
If you've ever been around a group of actors, you've noticed, no doubt, that they can talk of nothing else under the sun but acting. It's exactly the same way with baseball players. Your heart must be in your work.
Having fun is fantastic, and I never want to lose a sense of that - and also, I think, you have to have that to put into your work, or else it's going to feel stiff.
But we will say something else. That for far too long in this country, people who can work, people who are able to work, and people who choose not to work: you cannot go on claiming welfare like you are now.
An ideal movie would be, like - to get this to happen, I have to work so much harder - but imagine Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy... Who else? Donald Faison. Directed by Steven Spielberg. That would be awesome.
I really want to be known for my work. That sounds like such a... cliche, and I've thought about how else I can say it to make it sound less hackneyed. But that's what it comes down to... I know people are interested in these things.
I don't know what it is, exactly, but there's a negative drag on film sets after the second week or so, a mutinous vibe because the infinite capacities of the directors and everybody else become quite finite and everybody's under the gun and it becom...
When I felt rather overcome with my father's opposition, I said as firmly as I could, that I must have this or something else, that I could not live without some real work.
The press was all over to get a picture of me. It got to the point where they were all over my house, following me to work... Then Tom Brokaw and everybody else was doing stories, 'A star is born.'
I definitely challenge people. But hopefully, I am working harder than anybody else, and so people won't resent the fact that I want them to work hard, as well.
Never follow somebody else's path; it doesn't work the same way twice for anyone... the path follows you and rolls up behind you as you walk, forcing the next person to find their own way.
Some people say to be an actor you've got to die to do it. I think it's healthy if you think, 'I'll do it if it works, and if I don't, I can do something else.' That way seems to work for me.
What I had to prove was that I had a dedication and a desire and a passion to do the work and everything else would fall in place because I have a vision that I want to portray and it did and I do it. I don't sell anything.
I guess I created LeRoy Neiman. Nobody else told me how to do it. Well, I'm a believer in the theory that the artist is as important as his work.
Why pay $20 million to Harrison Ford? I don't even understand that. They think they have to do it... If someone puts a price on himself, that suggests he is irreplaceable, then he better find somewhere else to work.
A big part of who I am is just the way I was raised. Nobody is better than anyone else, and if you really work hard, you might get lucky and get what you want.
I try to procrastinate, if I can, productively, like I'll work on something else as procrastination. Or I take a walk. Because often I find, if you get out, more things come to you.
