James Purefoy Quotes
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I am not a big fan of what I call 'ambient television,' which just washes through you in a very polite way. I like television that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go.
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One of the things I like about doing historical films is drawing the line between now and then.
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Horror of any kind is dependent on a certain amount of insecurity and paranoia from the audience. And it feeds on that and works on that.
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When I was growing up, 'Butch and Sundance' was my absolute favorite film.
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Violence is a very ugly thing. Violence is often so casual on film, and made to look so cool and so sexy, but violence is a repulsive, repugnant act that human beings inflict on each other. It shouldn't seem to be cool and sexy, ever really.
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Acting is a way to escape who you are for a short period of time. It doesn't happen all the time , but every now and then, the sensation of being 'other' is very profound. You get this moment where you are no longer yourself. You lose consciousness of the crew or the audience... it's a thrilling moment. And even quite spiritual.
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I do know Joe Lansdale has the most extraordinary voice you've ever heard in your life in terms of an accent that, when I started doing it, they had to go, 'Whoa, we need less.' But that's how he talks.
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I love all things Apple and have done since 1996.
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I have no problem with television as a genre.
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We always have relationships in our lives with people we've fallen in love with, who come back into our lives, and we fall in love with them again and go, 'I shouldn't be doing this,' but you can't stop it.
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British actors are pretty good, by and large, at turning on at 'action' and off at 'cut.'
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As you mature and gain a semblance of wisdom and a sense of what life is all about... this is by no means true of everyone, but a lot of actors like to escape themselves. Inhabiting another person's persona is often a good way of escaping yourself.
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We shot the first season of 'Hap and Leonard' towards the end of the summer in Louisiana, in and around Baton Rouge. If anyone's been to Louisiana or comes from Louisiana, they know what the weather's like down there at that time of year: it's unbearably hot for an Englishman.
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I'm on record saying that HBO is the best television company in the world, and I believe they are. I think they absolutely understand how to make television that is really, really vital and interesting and visceral, and all the things that television really should be.
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When you don't take what you have for granted, you constantly try to re-prove yourself to yourself rather than to other people.
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Somerset is where I call home, and where I feel most myself.
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Dieting isn't complicated: if you eat 2,000 calories, you have to burn it off; simple as that.
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Once you have kids, horror movies become too horrible to watch because you imagine your own children in those situations, so you stop watching them.
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Playing Mark Antony in 'Rome' will always be a favourite of mine because he was such an outrageously big and interesting character to play. Also, the fact that we were able, with that character, to find out and present the public with a biography of that man that had not been really seen before.
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I think, as an actor, I would find it a little run-of-the-mill doing procedurals where it's the same sort of thing week in and week out. Your character doesn't get to grow very much, which, purely from an actor's point of view, you want to see an arc of your character.
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I ran into my old friend Michael Kenneth Williams, who I worked with on a show called 'The Philanthropist' for NBC. He was going to be doing this show called 'Hap and Leonard.' He was playing Leonard, and they were looking for somebody to play Hap.
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I think the business affairs people at the studios get some kind of perverse satisfaction in finding the worst hotels for actors to stay in.
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I have to travel a lot for work.
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Joe Carroll had a certain black comedy to him. But I think it's lovely playing a man who, in his heart and soul, is a gentle man. And he's wounded and complicated.