Actors From California

"Four years ago, I was working steadily but I felt I was disappointing my family, my friends in not living up to what they expected of me. When The Skulls came along I was drawn to it because it's a morality tale encapsulated in a thriller about a guy caught in a Faustian bargain between doing the right thing and the siren song of 'Just let go of your morality and think of all you can have.' Being Irish, I come from a Celtic tradition of storytellers and this was a story I wanted to help tell. I can honestly say I've never worked harder. But to go to bed every night saying to yourself, 'Man, I'm exhausted, but I did a great day's work' it's the best feeling you can have in this planet."

"This is a second act for me, and you give me that. I wanna thank you for this. I'm so grateful and proud. I just wanna to dedicated this (the award) to anyone else out there, who is trying to get a second act, because you can do. (Speech after receiving the British Academy Film Awards for the Best Director)"

"I'm always described as "cocksure" or "with a swagger," and that bears no resemblance to who I feel like inside. I feel plagued by insecurity."

"I asked Michael (Bay) why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers. He told me to shut the fuck up, so that was the end of that talk. He said, 'You know, Ben, just shut up, okay? You know, this is a real plan.' I was like, 'You mean it's a real plan at NASA to train oil drillers?' And he was, 'Just shut your mouth.' See, here's where we demonstrate that, because Bruce (Willis) is going to tell the guys they did a bad job of building the drill tank. See, he's a salt-of-the-earth guy, and the NASA nerd-o-nauts don't understand his salt-of-the-earth way, his rough-and-tumble ways. Like somehow they can build rocket ships, but they don't understand what makes a good tranny. Like eight whole months, as if that's not long enough to learn to drill a hole. But in a week, we're gonna learn how to be astronauts. I mean, this a little bit of a stretch, let's face it. 'They don't know jack about drilling'? How hard can it be? Aim the drill at the ground and turn it on."

"We've killed more Muslims than they've killed us by an awful lot, and we've invaded more Islamic nations. But we're exempted from these things?"

"You have Mel Brooks and your Marx Brothers and your Larry David. So it's affected it enormously and really not at all. I don't think I've ever done anything comedically where the joke of it had to do with Judaism and Jewishness, but there's definitely a proud tradition of comedy in the Jews."

"We were not aware of YouTube until "Lazy Sunday." We’d had our own website with streaming capabilities. After "Lazy Sunday," we were like, "Why are we paying for bandwidth and shit?""

"In the never-ending battle you have all officially joined as of today, the difference is in how truly you believe, in how vociferously you promote, in how tightly you hold onto the truth that is self-evident: that of course we are all created equally yet differently, and of course we are all in this together."

"Here's what I know. I could not be standing here without that undying love that was just sung about by, not Bruce [Springsteen], but Neil Young. And I have that in a lover that is so close to fine, we should all be able to experience such heaven right here on earth. I know also that, I should not be doing this, I should not be here, but I am because of the union of such filmmakers as Ed Saxon, Ron Nyswaner, Kristi Zea, Tak Fujimoto, Jonathan Demme -- who seems to have these [referring to the Oscar] attached to his limbs for every actor that works with him of late. And a cast that includes Antonio Banderas, who, second to my lover, is the only person I would trade for. And a cast that includes many other people, but the actor who really put his film image at risk, and shone because of his integrity, Mr. Denzel Washington, who I really must share this with."

"I would not be standing here if it weren't for two very important men in my life, so... two that I haven't spoken with in awhile, but I had the pleasure of just the other evening. Mr. Rawley Farnsworth, who was my high school drama teacher, who taught me to act well the part, there all the glory lies. And one of my classmates under Mr. Farnsworth, Mr. John Gilkerson. I mention their names because they are two of the finest gay Americans, two wonderful men that I had the good fortune to be associated with, to fall under their inspiration at such a young age. I wish my babies could have the same sort of teacher, the same sort of friends."

"And there lies my dilemma here tonight. I know that my work in this case is magnified by the fact that the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels. We know their names. They number a thousand for each one of the red ribbons that we wear here tonight. They finally rest in the warm embrace of the gracious creator of us all. A healing embrace that cools their fevers, that clears their skin, and allows their eyes to see the simple, self-evident, common sense truth that is made manifest by the benevolent creator of us all and was written down on paper by wise men, tolerant men, in the city of Philadelphia two hundred years ago. God bless you all. God have mercy on us all. And God bless America."

"Thank you. I'm standing here in lieu of my fellow nominees who are just as deserving, if not more so of this moment."

"I'm standing here because of an army of people who over the course of a back-breaking schedule that was set by Bob Zemeckis worked much harder than I did and who had much more at risk if our efforts were not successful."

"I'm empowered to stand here thanks to the ensemble of actors, men and women, who I shared the screen with and who in ways they will never understand made me a better actor."

"And I am standing here because the woman I share my life with has taught me and demonstrates for me every day just what love is. [Voice breaks as wife Rita Wilson tearfully mouths 'I love you'.]"

"Man, I feel as though I'm standing on magic legs in a special effects process shot that is too unbelievable to imagine and far too costly to make a reality."

"But here is my mark, and there is where I'm supposed to look, and believe me, the power and the pleasure and the emotion of this moment is as constant as the speed of light. It will never be diminished, nor will my appreciation."

"And the meaning between two simple words that I can only offer you here: Thank you, God bless you in this room and God bless you all around the world."

"We live in a society where there is no law in making money in the promulgation of ignorance or, in some cases, stupidity. There are a lot of things you can say never happened. You can go as relatively quasi-harmless as saying no one went to the moon. But you also can say that the Holocaust never happened."

"Every day, every year, and for every graduating class, there is a choice to be made, the same option for all grown-ups to make: to be one of three types of Americans — those who embrace liberty for all, those who won’t, or those who are indifferent — and only the first do the work of creating a more perfect union."

"We are all in a cage match, mixed martial arts battle royale with agents of intolerance and braying incompetence, the malevolent equals to Imperial stormtroopers, Lex Luther, and Loki. And we could use a superhero right now."

"The work that is called for is the construction of our ‘more perfect union. That job will never, ever be completed, one that requires rigorous attention and unfading wherewithal and all hands. The work is the keeping of the promises of our promised land, the practice of decency, the protection of freedom, and the promotion of liberty for all, with no exceptions. That takes a lot of work done on multiple job sites every single day, and you can call each of them a battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way."

"Another day on the set we were brought into the room where they replayed the dailies. While me and Bill were watching the monitor, Tom Hanks come up from behind and said, "Bill, Babe, don't turn around yet." When we did, he was dressed in an English officer's uniform. He said, "They gave me a cameo role. I'm going to be an English officer." I said, "Good, Tom, you could use the work." I told Tom Hanks he could use the work! I forgot he was Tom Hanks. He's such a regular guy. I'll tell you, I'd like to put a medal on him. Couldn't do enough for us. He kept telling people, "Take care of Bill and Babe. Take care of my boys from South Philly." Tom Hanks is top shelf."

"The Rock: And I quote: You know your damn role and Shut Your Damn Mouth!"

"The Rock: Michael Cole, Is that what you think? Michael Cole: I'll tell you what I think... The Rock: IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!"

"After 7 long years, Finally, FINALLY, FINALLY, The Rock has come back to Anaheim! Which means FINALLY, The Rock has come back to Monday Night Raw! Which means FINALLY, The Rock HAS COME BACK... home."

"The wok: I have so much love and respect for the fans. I'll never forget where I came from. I love the business. I grew up in the business. And everyone always asks me, from Letterman to Stone Phillips, what I miss about wrestling. Hands down, I miss the interaction with the fans. Outside of the ring I loved it, too. I mean, how hard is it to sign an autograph? Don't be an asshole to your fans. And there's many [in WWE] that won't, which is bullshit. But inside the ring, just that energy and feeding off that energy is great. There's something so special about it. And every night I would just have a blueprint of what I would say and rely so much on ad-libbing and waiting to see what happens when I get out there and let it materialize organically and see what happens. Every night was a different crowd and they gave me so much energy, and I'll always love that and always miss that for sure."

"The Rock: I need to take this moment, and I need to tell you something as Dwayne. It's been a long time since I've been back. Seven years to be exact; but I want to take this moment, in the middle of this ring, to tell you why I'm back. It's not because of the money. It's not to promote a movie. I am back in the middle of this ring because of you. When I left - when I left the WWE seven years ago I dreamed big, and you guys dreamed big with me. You helped me accomplish my goals - accomplish my dreams - because you never. left. my side; and I wanna take this moment to tell you all here - you're live here - millions watching around the world. I wanna tell you thank you. I love you, and it is because of you that I am back in this ring, and it is because of you - and I give you my word - I am never ever going away. Simply put, ladies and gentlemen, The Rock is back!"

"Edie could keep everybody busy getting her things . . . eight guys calling her up from eight different social strata. She'd be off to a jet set party here and an underground party there, and also rapping to the guy from the deli. And everybody on each level believed that her life on that level was her real trip. She kept everybody going!"

"It was at Lester Persky's place that Edie met Andy Warhol. It was early 1965. She was doing her dance there - a sort of balletlike rock 'n' roll. We'd had an idea of opening up an underwater discotheque where Edie'd dance her ballet to Bach played at rock 'n' roll tempo. So Andy invited us down to the Factory the next day and he said, "Why don't we do some things together?" Andy spotted her energy. Everybody else was tired and going through the trip."

"Edie saw herself as tough like a little tomboy."

"She'd be off to a jet-set party here and an underground party there, and also rapping to the guy from the deli. And everybody on each level believed that her life on that level was her real trip."

"Sort of Egyptian, with her head tilting in just the right, beautiful way. People called it 'The Sedgwick', and Edie was the only one who did it — everybody else was doing The Jerk."

"She was also a compulsive liar; she just couldn't tell the truth about anything. And what an actress. She could really turn on the tears. She could somehow always make you believe her — that's how she got what she wanted."

"She had a poignantly vacant, vulnerable quality that made her a reflection of everybody's private fantasies."

"One person in the sixties fascinated me more than anybody I had ever known. And the fascination I experienced was probably very close to a certain kind of love. now. But her name is still going. It seems incredible, doesn't it?"

"For some reason Edie was very strongly on me that night so I decided to have Myers's daiquiris because it was Myers's daiquiris that Edie and I had in Casablanca, where the whole Cambridge scene between us took place. They had never heard of a daiquiri in South India so we had to make them ourselves. They got the lemon out from behind the bar and we bought a bottle of dark rum. When they finally brought out a jug . . . I think it was a metal can . . . we took the lemons and we squeezed them, and then they brought out the sugar little by little to add to the mixture. India is a very poor country and there's never enough sugar. We set up a glass for Edie, which is an Indian thing . . . a way of honoring some spirit that was killed. So there was a glass for Edie sitting on the other side of the table from my friend Mike and I. I remembered that Edie smoked, so I put a cigarette in the ashtray there. The cigarette wasn't lit and it just sat there. And the drink sat there. And I talked about Edie."

"Edie loved parties. Edie adored parties. It was a very comfortable party. People dancing. The moon rose out of the ocean, spiraling up in the dark. It was the final touch — a nice moon rippling on the ocean and turning everything silver. Edie was very sensitive to enchantments. She broke away from the form completely and was doing these totally free dance movements. We looked out from under the marquee, and there she was on this deserted lawn. And she was cartwheeling across it, cartwheeling. I remember the music dying down as the focus of attention shifted to her out there. Edie had disappeared. It was a bit spooky. Somebody said, "We saw her go swimming." She was nowhere in sight on this beach. "Is that her? Way, way out?" Edie was way out...a little dark head...such a distance. She seemed to be going under and then surfacing again. I could see the shine of her legs as she dove. It was like her dancing the night before. She was playing … totally natural and involved in the element of water; she was like a porpoise. She seemed only to exist freely in atmospheres that were removed or enchanted … most people are happy swimming by the shore, but she was happy out there."

"It must have had an effect on Andy - Edie leaving him for Dylan, or whoever. He was probably in love with Edie, with all of us - a sexless kind of love, but he would take up your whole life so that you had no time for any other man. When Edie left with Grossman and Dylan, that was betrayal, and he was furious . . . a lover betrayed by his mistress."

"The maid said, "Can I take your coat?" She said, "No, I don't think so. I'm a little cold." Later Edie told me the real reason she didn't want to take her coat off was that she wasn't wearing any clothes under it."

"Once, when she saw the script of Shower - probably the best one-actor I've ever written, in which Edie and Roger Trudeau spend the whole thing in the shower- she started screaming, "I will not be a spokesman for Tavel's perversities!" That was the first time I'd ever heard my work described as perverse. I was to hear it in years to come from some of our best-known critics . . . but that was the first time anyone cared enough to say such a thing. "I will not be in it!" Edie cried, and marched out. "I won't do this!" The end really came when Edie tore up the script of a movie called Space, saying she wasn't going to memorize anything. She started to read a few of her lines: "What is all this about? How stupid!" and tore it up, right in front of everybody. That's when I walked out. That may have been the last time I saw her."

"Edie didn't belong with the bikers. Like, she was a rich hippie. the rich hippies, their mommy buys them a chopper - a four-thousand-dollar chopper - and they drive it until the weather gets cold and they get themselves a nice, warm car. Your true biker takes his bike out whatever the weather because he loves it. When a rich hippie gets in an accident, he sells his bike, what's left of it. "Oh, I got hurt, I don't want this." The good biker fixes his. I've been lucky. I've been down quite a few times . . . tasted the pavement quite a bit. You live by a bike; you die by a bike, That's what I believe."

"I was a great, great friend of Edie Sedgwick … Edie and I were in several of the early Andy Warhol films … Edie was beautiful beyond words. She was absolutely breath-taking and a very sweet person. Edie was a precious person. She was heavily into drugs which caused her death. … Edie was very glamorous. And truly beautiful, breathtaking, and I think it was a great loss she died so young."

"Edie seemed superficially sane. Rather than anxious or disturbed, she seemed angry and resigned. But then at lunch I saw her heap her plate and eat in that bizarre way that anorectics do, picking and wolfing . . . and then she would get up and disappear. When I heard what the choices were - that unless Edie went to the mental hospital at Silver Hill where Minty had been, my father would leave the family. I said to my mother, "You're in a situation where you have to choose between your husband and your children." She said, "Oh no, there's no question of leaving my husband. I couldn't.""

"I think as she got older, the recklessness got stronger, and it really would have been far more brave for her to try to do otherwise than what she was doing. She was the opposite of brave. She let the tide carry her along. And the tide was a destructive one, and she became a smaller and smaller speck as she simply let herself be swept along in its flow."

"The funeral was a drag, man. Everybody was feeling sorry for themselves. Michael was feeling sorry for himself. Mummy was feeling sorry for herself. Krista and I were the only people there who felt sorry for everybody else. I cried. I hurt a lot about Edie, and I hurt a lot about Minty, and I hurt a lot about Bobby, and I hurt a lot about Fuzzy. Sometimes I wonder how many people a family can destroy with their stupidity."

"I immediately said on the phone: "Don't let them get to her! She's not dead yet, man!" I felt she'd simply astro-projected, which means that you've separated your consciousness from your body and you're still connected by some sort of energy: some call it a silver thread, or a silver cord. Jimi Hendrix went out on it and never came back. Edie did, too. I tried to see if we could stop it, but they'd already taken the blood out of her, and once that's done, you're dead."

"When she was walking along the street, she dropped her purse and a whole bunch of reds and things fell out. A cop car pulled up, 'What ya doing?' And then the cops get the idea that she was carrying drugs on her. So they got out and threw her up against the car, her hands up over the hood, at which point her purse spilled open again and they're whites, the reds falling everywhere! The cop who had pushed her against the car turned around and began picking up the stuff, so she wheeled around and gave him a kick in the ass man, with all the energy and hate she could. The court put Edie on probation for 5 years. After the bust she became a patient at the Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara."

"She was an alien. She'd pick up what you were about to say before you'd say it."

"One night Edie and I were sitting there. She was drinking coffee to speed herself up some more - God! - when out of the blue she said, "Hey, Jonathan! I think you should make love with me!" I said, "No, Edie, no, I'm not into that!" "I really think you should do it, Jonathan. I'd like to." She reminded me of the time when she went to London with Suky and my mother, and I came over from Germany, from the Army; Edie wanted to make love with me, and I didn't do it then either. She said, "Everybody always wanted me. My father wanted me. He tried to make love to me. All the men on the ranch wanted me. Even you wanted me, Jonathan." I said, "Yeah I did. For sure." So in the coffee shop she kept saying, "I think it's something you should do. Jonathan, I . . . I really think you ought to make love with me now." She was very high on speed her head was shaking up and down. "Jonathan, I think we ought to do it now." I felt maybe we should find out what our love was for each other. She was beautiful; I liked her. I knew she'd teach me something . . . but I didn't do it."