Jimmy Smits Quotes
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What happens to George Clooney and Bruce Willis is great, but I can't gauge my career by anyone else's.
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Latino people have come up to me and said they were motivated to become a lawyer because they saw me play one on TV - and you can't discount how great it is when they tell me I was the first.
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I know it affected me when I saw certain actors growing up. I had a drama teacher that would take us to see plays in New York, and it was seeing James Earl Jones and Raul Julia - I mean, this guy comes from the place my mother comes from. He's doing Shakespeare right now, and it doesn't seem to matter that he has an accent.
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At first, I took theater courses on the side. Then, theater became my minor; then it was my major.
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I think education was the key for me, and that's what I tell kids. That base in the classics gave me something to springboard from, which I wouldn't have had if I'd come out to Los Angeles early and been guest punk of the week on 'Hill Street Blues.'
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You gotta find that hook so everybody can grab on to it. So that you're true to the culture but, at the same time, how it relates to the larger tapestry.
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When you're 27 million strong, no one can tell you that you don't belong or expect you to just move along.
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Doing a truncated series is like doing a long movie, which allows for a certain artistic freedom. After just 12 episodes, you can take a breather and do other things for your career.
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I almost feel like sometimes when I'm on location, you miss your home and your family and all that stuff, but it keeps you focused on the work.
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There's something so familial and intimate between a boxer and his trainer.
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I can't get into talking about why another actor left. It has nothing to do with me.
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Everything in moderation, like calories.
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How come actors feel like they have to give some kind of personal revelation attached to the project?
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I've had the good fortune to play characters that have a role-model thing to them.
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I have and will continue to vigorously pursue opportunities in all mediums.
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Education is the key in so many ways.
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I save the rage for the stage.
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We tend to think of World War II and all the atrocities that happened, and people say, 'Never again.' But these things are still happening. The Amnesty International files are big.
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I've been very lucky to work on a wide variety of projects, including two long-run and top-10 dramatic television shows. That is why it is so important to offer a helping hand to the next generation of young Latinos coming up behind me.
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I left 'L.A. Law' after five years when my contract was up because I felt I had done all I could do with the character. I didn't walk off the show with a three-picture deal to pursue this wonderful film career.
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I've been told that I wasn't Latino enough, which was code for 'street' enough.
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The hits and the misses. I just want to keep the at-bats solid.
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An actor tries to be versatile, to immerse himself in a different culture.
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It's less about the physical training, in the end, than it is about the mental preparation: boxing is a chess game. You have to be skilled enough and have trained hard enough to know how many different ways you can counterattack in any situation, at any moment.