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If your mind is at work, we're in danger of reproducing another cliche. If we can keep our minds out of it and our thoughts out of it, maybe we'll come up with something original.
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I had two ambitions: One was to be in The Actors Studio, and the other was to walk into a bar where actors hung out, and everyone would know that I was a professional actor and I would be accepted.
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I used to dread somebody saying, 'Whatsa matter with your eye?'
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The only mountain that I would still like to climb: I'd like to break 85.
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I don't like getting up in the morning, getting in a car, driving on a freeway, and stopping at a gate where two guards are standing there, then walk into a studio that looks like a bunch of airplane hangars.
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I'm just looking to get through the day.
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Hartford had the Mark Twain Masquers, which was fantastic. They had been in business I don't know how many years. They knew how to build sets and sell tickets and put on a play. My day started at night. When I left the office, that's when my day began.
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It helps an actor an awful lot when he looks like the part. There's nothing more disconcerting, that makes you more anxious or more insecure, than when you don't look like who you're supposed to be.
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I got a regret: That I started acting so late. I was 27, and guys who start at 18 or so, there's this kinda continuity of friendships they form in the profession by startin' young, I've never had that.
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I wanted to become an actor, but I didn't want to admit it.
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In order to be totally spontaneous, you can't be too obsessed with accuracy, but if you're inaccurate in a drawing, it will look fake, and when you act, it will sound fake. You have to find miraculously some proper balance between the two, but there's no formula.
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I've never worried about the grand concepts.
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Usually, I get hired because I'm tall.
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I like stories that grow, that have unpredictable layers. As opposed to Hollywood movies that start out with a lot of shock and noise and peter out into an unconvincing cliche.
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I was a street-guy villain. I was a street-corner villain. I was an illiterate villain. All rough edges.
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I do figure every angle of a guy I'm acting - but not consciously 'til afterward.
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Sure, I miss some things about the stage. The thing I like is the immediacy. But then I complain, 'I gotta do the same part for six months.'
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Your instincts for what's dramatic are the same whether you're working on a drawing or on a script.
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To be a theater actor, I think you have to do plays all the time.
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The truth is, no one is like Columbo.