Jerry Weintraub
Will Smith is fantastic.
I like Scott Caan. I think he's a great young kid. I think he's gonna have a really huge career.
'Liberace's a great film. It's a great piece of material. I have a great script and it's a great score.
I've had great luck with directors. I've worked with all the great ones.
When I was a young boy, very young boy, mothers didn't work. Women were home, they took care of the house, they washed the dishes and took care of the children. That's what they did, and that's what my mother did.
I think if something's good and you believe in it, and you care about it, and you give it love and nurture it, it's going to happen.
I'm a guy who shakes your hand and will never let you down. I have a code of honor and I don't lie.
I make friends easily. I'm a gregarious guy, I'm open, I'm easy to get to know - I don't lock myself in an ivory tower. So I like people; I enjoy people.
Britain produces great actors because they learn on stage so know their stuff when they get on a movie set.
I learned I'm not a good executive, I'm an entrepreneur and I'm creative. I have to go with my gut and do what I want to do.
I find a way to convince people to come along with me. They want to be persuaded. When I sit in a room with you I'm going to sell you something whether you want it or not. At the end you'll say: 'I'm glad I bought that.'
The budgets are much higher now, it costs more to make a movie and the kids that go to see them are into instant gratification. They want things bigger and bigger. I don't make those kind of movies. I make movies about relationships.
When you reach my age, you understand that you are a player with skin in the game, no matter what game it is.
It's been the structure of my life: you scheme and plan and try and fail and try again and accumulate and lose and win back, and then you tell.
I called my book 'When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead' because that's the truth. I will keep talking until the big hand comes down from Heaven. But I am a spiritual man and I believe that even that does not have to be the end.
People don't understand this, but I started very young, and I became very, very successful at a very young age. By the time I was 26 years old, I was a multimillionaire. And I started with nothing. And I was on the road 10, 11 months a year.
When I found something I believed in and I cared about and thought I could market and sell and could be thought of creatively - the most important thing to me - I did it.
I have a very big phone book and a very long reach around the world. And I think - I don't think, I know - that 95 percent of the people who I know who weren't born into success who have become successful and done things that are different and made a lot of money and had a lot of excitement in their life are people who never hear the word 'no.'
If you want to be in the world I live in, which is a creative world with new ideas, then you've got to get away from the norm. You've got to go for it.
I'm an independent, probably. I'm not dogmatic. I've supported Democrats and Republicans.
Every minute doing one thing is a minute not doing something else. Every choice is another choice not made another path grown over lost.Collection: Choices
I just don't believe that you can't make anything happen. I think if something's good and you believe in it, and you care about it, and you give it love and nurture it, it's going to happen.Collection: Believe
Relationships are the only thing that matter in business in life.Collection: Matter
Do not get attatched to the world as it is. Because the world is changing something new is coming.Collection: World
As soon as you feel comfortable, that's when it's time to start over.Collection: Starting Over
If asked my philosophy, it would be simply this: Savor life, don't press too hard, don't worry too much.Collection: Philosophy
The best thing that happened from that situation when I failed was the fact that I failed and I failed because I was trying to do things that I don't like to do. I like to make movies and I like the creative process. I don't really care about the business end of it. It's not my thing. So I was all of sudden totally immersed in the business end of it and dealing with human resources, lawyers, and accountants, and so on. It wasn't for me.Collection: Creative
Liberace was Elton John and Lady Gaga before they even dreamed of it.Collection: Gaga
As my life went on and I met Frank Sinatra and people like that, and I watched live performers on stage, I learned how to tell a story. Because if you listen to Sinatra, all of his songs are stories; there's a beginning, middle, and end. So that's where it comes from.Collection: Song
I know everybody. I make friends easily. I'm a gregarious guy, I'm open, I'm easy to get to know - I don't lock myself in an ivory tower. So I like people; I enjoy people.Collection: People
George Clooney says that I'm "the last of your kind." That's a nice quote. I kind of like that quote. I'm a guy who shakes your hand and will never let you down. I have a code of honor and I don't lie. I have a code of honor about life and that's what he meant. And you don't need a contract with me.Collection: Nice
I am persistent about everything I believe in. If there's a film I want to do, a record, a Broadway show - I do it. Everybody can hate it but I will still do it. I am fearless that way.Collection: Hate
It’s been the structure of my life: you scheme and plan and try and fail and try again and accumulate and lose and win back, and then you tell.Collection: Winning
I can do anything - but that doesn't mean I should do that. I need to enjoy what I do. I enjoy making movies.Collection: Mean
Freedom is saying I want to do this Not thatCollection: Want
Talented people have to do what they do. Someone can criticize but you do what you do.Collection: People
Pauline Kael had seen Nashville, and she loved Nashville. When I called her, she immediately responded to me because we had become friends, and I told her how great this film was, and she told me, "Well, I'll have to see it for myself." So I showed it to her, and she flipped.Collection: Film
I am humble. It was an honor, and I cried the first time I saw the film His Way. Because to have people of that caliber, like Julia Roberts, take the time to sit down and give a day or two of their lives to a film about me, that they're not getting paid for, is pretty extraordinary.Collection: Humble
My mother lived her life through movies and books - she read everything there was to read. And she read to me every night. I never went to sleep without her reading to me. And she fantasized about the book and she would talk about it, the place, and you would think that after she read the book and after she told you stories about it, that she had actually been there. I learned about story from her, and I learned the value of a great story, and the value of great characters.Collection: Mother
Money! They go together. Franchise; money. Money; franchise.Collection: Together
I'm a good party guest...the problem is, I feel like I'm working all the time. "Give us an Elvis Presley story! Give us a Frank Sinatra story!"Collection: Party
That story about the two women in my life is - a lot of people get upset, a lot of people question it. Steven Soderbergh said to me, "The story of your life is incredible. The real story of your life that's interesting, more interesting than all the other stuff - the franchises, the movies, the songs, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra - the real thing that's interesting and unbelievable is the relationship with these two women. And if you're willing to put that out there, you know then, you're going to have a great movie. Because that's the movie."Collection: Song
In New York City there are interesting characters and there are interesting stories. There's a story on every street corner. I love it. I think that's what really attracts me to making films.Collection: Character
I do characters. I believe in that. I think people are interesting. Now, everybody that you meet in New York City thinks that their life is a movie.Collection: Believe
Disasters around the world are twice as big as they ever were, and ice is melting where it's not supposed to melt, and everything's changing - the world is changing - and it's all because of global warming, I think.Collection: Thinking