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It is a weird thing that actors have people applaud when they're done working. I still find that entertaining.
Val Kilmer -
That's the joy of art - it should be dangerous and challenging but it's just art - it's safe.
Val Kilmer
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Where [a]can you trust your own thoughts and your own intentions? Everywhere, hopefully, but it isn't always that easy. Sometimes, you have to help yourself along.
Val Kilmer -
YouTube is a new experience for me-someone threw a laptop in front of me and showed me Nic Cage going mad, which has got to be the funniest thing on YouTube. He's so courageous.
Val Kilmer -
There are only three reasons to do a movie: the cast, the director, the role. Like I say, you live in a minute of screen time, but to prepare for the minute takes much more than a day. You'd better be excited about what those moments are, even if they're the hardest moments. Or the smallest.
Val Kilmer -
Mark Twain had a way of telling stories that shifts your consciousness away from labels.
Val Kilmer -
The character wasn't polite, so when I shook Grazer's hand and he said, 'Hi, I'm the producer,' I said, 'I'm sorry. You look like you're 12 years old. I like to work with men.'
Val Kilmer -
I probably complained more when I was younger. The movie industry can be frustrating but I think sometimes I could have been more helpful, approaching a film as a partnership rather than being critical of a director's ignorance. I wasn't sensitive to the fact that it's very hard to direct.
Val Kilmer
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It seems to me that every step forward in my life has been one that brings me to a better understanding of this: that you do your thing every day the best that you can, and you approach any success at it with humility.
Val Kilmer -
I've found that Hollywood's a really honest business. They don't pull any punches. They tell you exactly what you want-I want the fake breasts and the flat car and the big pool. You know, they're real up-front about it.
Val Kilmer -
I'm not just an actor born in L.A. I was born in the Griffith Park Hospital. You can't get any more clichéd than that.
Val Kilmer -
The trick to being a good actor is getting so involved in your character that the camera disappears, the 50 bored guys eating doughnuts disappear, friends disappear. To get to that point when you don't have to think about it, you're just acting and reacting in those circumstances.
Val Kilmer -
Doing my first movie, I realized I could get into real bad habits. If you're the star, all you have to do is show up, and 20 people say, 'Do you want anything? What is it? Let me get it for you.' Believe me, you get spoiled very quickly. I saw some of my contemporaries allow themselves to have that fame, thinking they could handle it. It messed them up.
Val Kilmer -
Interesting characters are troubled characters. The only problem I've had in my business is very few people - unfortunately, very vocal - confusing the difficult role that I play with me. I play these guys, but I'm not like them. I've been accused of being difficult to work with.
Val Kilmer
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In order to be an artist and an actor, like tackling the classics in the theater as well as film, there's lots of discipline, lots of work, physical work put in.
Val Kilmer -
Mark Twain is a universe, and he is also a kind of American authority figure. He can say things to America that other people can't say, in a way that can truly be heard.
Val Kilmer -
Mark Twain was an artist working at the highest level. He wrote a book, his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that put America on the world stage for literature. It's almost as if, if you start reading that book as a racist, you cannot finish it and still be a racist.
Val Kilmer -
So it`s always helped me to have a foundation, an ideal to strive for and goals. It`s hard for me to be disciplined and plan things.
Val Kilmer -
Acting is not a science. Anybody who believes that their success exists in relation to their goals is deluding themselves; unless you think of a career in terms of financial goals. I have nothing against Tom Cruise, but he must have a large capacity to deal with the business side of movies.
Val Kilmer -
Sometimes, I wonder what I'm doing back in Los Angeles, but when you look out there... How can you complain when you see a whale cresting, matter-of-factly, as you make your breakfast?
Val Kilmer
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It's important to be yourself. What art does for everyone, helps you understand yourself and in a distilled way, whether it's a painting or a scene in acting or a joke. It distills something about everyday life that can be important to you.
Val Kilmer -
I fell in love with the land and with the very old fashioned idea of leaving a physical legacy for my children. A stunning place, with a magnificent forest of trees, and a magnificent river.
Val Kilmer -
I saw the horizon. It's out there. And though I may not ever be able to touch it, it's worth reaching for.
Val Kilmer -
I learned a long time ago that place matters to me, on many levels, and maybe more than it should, but it is generally counter-productive for me to resist it.
Val Kilmer