J. K. Simmons Quotes
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I had many, many mentors that I worked with. Music teachers, choir directors, directors in summer stock or in regional theater. You know, people I was able to work with repeatedly and learn from who were really sort of appropriate people for me to work with at a given time in my development as an actor.
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I would like to find, or I would like a part to come to me that is like the part that Dennis Franz was fortunate to be able to play on 'NYPD Blue,' a sort of similar-looking actor to me, a generic, bald white guy who you would often think of as playing the authority figure. But he was the disgruntled middle-man. That would be a fun character.
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I don't think I've ever watched a movie to prepare for a role.
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I have a degree in music, yeah, from the University of Montana. I studied voice and composition and conducting and all that.
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Music to me was never something that I could listen to while reading a book. Especially when I was studying music, if I was going to listen to music, I was going to put on the headphones or crank the stereo, and by God, I was going to sit there and just listen to music. I wasn't going to talk on the phone and multitask, which I can't do anyway.
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There's a kind of numbness, a sameness, a lack of motivation in 'good job' culture.
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Almost every character I've ever played - and sometimes this is very conscious and sometimes it's not - I need to find what they love.
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Music has become so ever-present in our lives. You can't walk through a shopping mall or go into a restaurant without what we used to call Muzak.
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When I read the script and saw the jazz music setting, and when I read the name of the filmmaker was Damien Chazelle, I immediately got this mental image of Antoine Fuqua.
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I'm just glad to be able to work.
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If I see a now-28-year-old woman coming up to me, she's probably thinking of 'Juno' because she watched it with her parents when she was 18 years old.
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It's OK to turn down stuff that isn't really interesting and spend the summer with my family.
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If I was doing a musical, I would never listen to the cast album, because I wanted to do my version of something.
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It's nice to be number one on the call sheet.
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Sometimes I read a really good script, and I just know that it's not a good fit.
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I was not a giant comic book fan as a kid, but to the extent that I did read comics, Spider-Man was always my favorite guy.
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Whether you need to like a character, I don't think that's necessary in order to portray him.
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My aunt was so attuned to commercials that she could always identify the voiceover actor.
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Everybody does their homework, and we all come together and just knock it out. There are adjustments to make, and if you have actors who are collaborators and who really know how to listen and be in the scene together, than it works out beautifully.
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If the awards buzz is happening, and it's coming from critics and people in the business and all of that, that's only more good news.
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By the time I started doing TV and film, I was in my forties, so I wasn't going to do the young up-and-comer.
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I want to be like Bradley Cooper when I grow up.
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The best complement I ever got from the public or producers or directors is that I just totally blend in and become the character and they don't notice me and that the play happens or the movie happens or the TV show happens.
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Fortunately, for the first 20 years in my career, I didn't have any other responsibilities outside of myself. I didn't have a wife and kids, so I could afford to sort of barely scrape by, to do theater.