Doing Quotes

In movies, there are some things the French do that Americans are increasingly incapable of doing. One is honoring the complexities of youth. It's a quiet, difficult undertaking, requiring subtlety in a filmmaker and perception and patience from us.

Yeah, I've had an odd youth, But I wouldn't know the difference if I'd lived it any other way. And I wouldn't change any of it because I quite like what I'm doing.

Even during my youth, I can recall very few black people living on any kind of public assistance. People were working, doing some kind of job that was useful to the community.

I became an actor by doing school plays and youth theaters, and then National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. And then I did study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. For me that was a good way to enter the field, to work in the theater.

I was doing a show at the National Youth Theatre, playing an old man. Before that I had played fat clowns and I thought, 'If I want to have the career I would like, I am going to have to lose weight.' I was just starting drama school, and found I was moving around a lot. I also started to eat sensibly. The weight just dropped off.

I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.

I'm getting married because I'm in love with a girl and want to spend my life with her. You can't live your life doing what other people want you to or you'll be miserable. At some point you just have to be yourself.

I know that sounds selfish, but you have to look at what it's doing to you personally - are you frustrated because of the way people perceive you, or are you happy enough about the things you've realized about yourself that you can tolerate the way people perceive you?

There's no reason to stereotype yourself. Doing math is like going to the gym - it's a workout for your brain and it makes you smarter.

You have to be careful not to let your fear stop you doing things. It's very exciting to test yourself.

Spending waiting moments doing crossword puzzles or reading a book you brought yourself.

And doing a film in that period, and having to really celebrate what they wore back then, how they sat and how they spoke. You know, what the etiquette was back then for a lady. All of those things are like putting on a wig and transforming yourself, which I love.

Picture yourself in your minds eye as having already achieved this goal. See yourself doing the things you'll be doing when you've reached your goal.

When you walk 10 hours, 11 hours a day by yourself, you are doing a walking meditation.

You know, it's hard sometimes to just detach yourself from what you're doing.

If 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself: 'Dijkstra would not have liked this', well that would be enough immortality for me.

There will always be a part of me that wants to do a movie musical. I feel like you're doing yourself a disservice when you say something like that, because you never know if that thing is gonna come along and be right, but I'd be lying if I said that that wasn't true.

You can feel better about yourself in a very short period of time depending on the kind of magic that you are doing.

You don't really see yourself doing things, of course, but you feel.

You've got all these books on self help, getting to know yourself, doing the right thing, eating the so-called right foods, even down to what books you have on your shelves. People are encouraged to look to themselves first as opposed to being a part of society.

You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.

It's amazing that for actors mostly, it's a risk to attach yourself to a film that you don't know whether or not it's going to even be made and if you sign on, in doing so, who else is going to be in the movie with you.

So, if you're doing good longform with talented people than you can step out and you can be the president or a construction worker and people accept that. It's really the roles you give yourself.

I learned to put 100 percent into what you're doing. I learned about setting goals for yourself, knowing where you want to be and taking small steps toward those goals. I learned about adversity and how to get past it.

Sometimes it's just harder to remind yourself about what you're doing and why you're doing it... Other times, you have a great desire for it, but physically you're not responding the way you want. That presents other challenges. Then sometimes it all comes together.

People think the gold medal is yours and they say you're going to win - but they have no idea how hard it is. People aren't doing it negatively - they're mostly lovely and they really do want you to win - but they don't understand the difficulty and intensity of competition.

It doesn't happen very often that you get to work with some really good friends of yours and there's a common language between everyone, you don't have to explain what you're doing, you can just run with it. It makes it just so much easier and more relaxed.

Do not, on a rainy day, ask your child what he feels like doing, because I assure you that what he feels like doing, you won't feel like watching.

I don't think you can have pain and soul-searching doing the right thing for your child.

I grew up doing sitcoms and theater and even playing with the Beach Boys, where you're programmed to perform, your body gets into a rhythm and you know it has to perform.