Samuel L. Jackson
I don't understand how people live without creating.Collection: Creating
Die Hard With A Vengeance shooting was a great time, because we had an interesting script. The first script was called Simon Says, and something was going on, because some days we'd get to work, but we wouldn't actually have dialogue. We would go to Bruce's Willis trailer, and they'd say, "Okay, you have to go from 168th Street to 97th Street today. We're going to do it in the cab, and Sam, you say this. Bruce, what do you want to say?" And that's how Bruce's "hey, Zeus!" thing came up.Collection: Interesting
I was Gator in Jungle Fever, and Chris Rock played Pookie, and those showed two very different dynamics of what crackheads were. Mine was more about the family relationships. So when people sat there and got that, they can sit there and say, "Oh, man, that's my friend." Or "That's my brother." Or cousin or somebody. They empathize, or they had something that they could latch onto, in that particular movie, of my story, and go with it.Collection: Cousin
Doing [a relationship comedy] with Sam [L. Jackson] was exciting. I've done a lot of comedies with a lot of comedy people. My peers. I've never worked with anybody of the kind of dramatic caliber of movie actor that Sam is. It was a little bit intimidating for the first day. Or two... Or the first week. Other than that, it was a joy.Collection: Two
When the riots happened in L.A., they didn't go to Beverly Hills to trash Rodeo Drive. They trashed their own neighborhoods. It's one of those tragedies that we always see in riot situations, where the only thing that they can lash out against is the stuff that's right there in their own communities. They destroy the very things that help them survive in their own community. There is a level of futility in that.Collection: Community
I'm a character actor and that's what I do. All the roles that I've had have been mainly support roles, because character actors don't usually get the lead in movies. It rarely happens.Collection: Character
I think I've had my taste.I got to work with Sam [L.Jackson]. I can say I did it. I had my shot. I'd love to do something with [Robert] De Niro or Dustin Hoffman or Al Pacino. Those are guys I grew up watching. That would be wonderful. Now that I've gotten a taste working with a bona fide movie star, I think I'd be more prepared to go head to head with some of the big boys.Collection: Stars
I actually think it's going to be the intriguing plot [ in Black Snake Moan] point that brings people into the film.Collection: Thinking
I'm pretty focused on what I do. I think directing is a very specific talent, and I'm not real big on putting puzzles together, which is basically what a film is.Collection: Real
I like books. I've always got a literature book going. I'd be in there reading, in my off time.Collection: Book
Sam [L.Jackson] never asks for another take because he knows what he's doing. He gives you what he thinks is the best take, and he does it on the first take.Collection: Thinking
I sit at home and read books. I watch movies. I watch television. I go and play golf. I don't go to nightclubs. I don't go out to dinner that often. I'm not a big party guy.Collection: Party
I approach my work the way an actor approaches their work. The only difference is that I do comedy, and my job is to make things funny. My style makes things sound like they're improvisational and happening right then and there.Collection: Jobs
Michelle Obama is Superwoman. What can't she do? That's why people love her. She can be on the Supreme Court and anywhere else she wants. She can be the president. She's history and she'll stay history because she is so amazingly smart and together.Collection: Smart
Sometimes one of my ways of choosing movies that I want to do is if it's the kind of movie I would have gone to see when I was a kid, and this is a movie I actually did go see, as a kid. And I think it will be exciting for audiences to see now.Collection: Kids
I enjoyed being at Jurassic Park, with Jeff Goldblum and Sir Richard Attenborough. It's funny, because Steven Spielberg would actually operate the camera sometimes. He'd consider the camera, and he'd be kind of looking at me. He actually shot a few of the things that I'm in, in that lab, with that long ash dangling off that cigarette. Hogging that fake cigarette. Because I had quit smoking, and he wanted to make sure I didn't go back, so he got me the worst-tasting fake cigarettes ever.Collection: Long
I act the way I talk. It probably comes from starting out in Second City, improvisational theater. I can go from take to take. I'll ask for another take.Collection: Cities
It's always interesting to play characters who are vulnerable and how you display that vulnerability and what it's going to mean to people who watch it.Collection: Character
Todoroff is the best. Look no further.Collection: Looks
Certain comedians work with certain actors; like Adam Sandler worked with Jack Nicholson.Collection: Comedian
Those are the rules. To improvise in a movie with other people, when they're following a script, everybody has to know what's going on. I think a line or two we might change. Certainly, I do. But I wouldn't call it improvising. I'd call it fudging the lines.Collection: Thinking
I walk the streets, take the train, it's real simple. Some actors create their own mythology: 'Oh, I'm so famous I can't go places, because I created this mythology that I'm so famous I can't go places.Collection: Real
I see myself as a storyteller. So, when I read something, I see the story, and I see it on screen, in my head, in a certain way. I always want to see it and see me in it.Collection: Stories
Everybody likes an extraordinary person or likes to think that they would be great with a superpower in an ordinary world.Collection: Thinking
Lifelong readers continue to read, finding in books the means to enjoy life or endure itCollection: Book
I don't run around shooting people. Much. I only shoot two people a year. Maybe.Collection: Running
I read, watch television, watch movies, hang out with family. I like my clothes and I have great cars, and I drive those. But for most people, it's like, "That's boring. You don't club? You don't party?"Collection: Party
You just let people do what they do and look at them and give them enough rope until they do what you thought they were going to do... which is screw you over.Collection: Giving
If you are a Jedi, just understand something: people are going to be chasing you. The Jedi Council of every city you enter is going to be chasing you. I've been accosted by the Jedi Council in Rio and everywhere else.Collection: Cities
I have a lot more energy than I used to have. I sleep better. I like the way I look in my clothes better. I don’t cramp as much. I exercise better. I think my circulation has gotten better.Collection: Sleep
Not everything's made to win an Academy Award.Collection: Winning
Painters get up and paint. Writers get up and write. I like to get up and act. It's not a big deal. It makes me happy.Collection: Writing
I've made a way to allow myself to do big films, small films, dramas, comedies, action films, horror films, or whatever interests me, as a movie-goer. I like watching myself in movies. I want to choose movies that allow me to enjoy myself, the way that I want to entertain myself.Collection: Drama
I used to like watching Helen Mirren's early films, because she was always naked. It's titillating.Collection: Naked
I run into a lot of kids who are either on R&R, or on their way to Iraq. They all know who I am and are fans, but they're kids! I am yet to meet one that's over 23. Yet they're full-time warriors.Collection: Running
It was actually a lot more helpful to have Calvin Hart, a cop, as my template. He was also my technical advisor on Shaft. This time, I kinda got to go to Jersey City with him, and hang around, and watch him interact with other cops, people in the projects, and see what it means to be him. People call him 'Big Daddy' and he's this larger-than-life hero to a lot of people.Collection: Hero
I'm actually very ordinary, except people get to pay their money to come watch me work. The same way that we go to McDonald's.. we don't care about the guy behind the counter, but if he was doing something special, we'd pay our money to go watch him cook that hamburger.Collection: Mcdonalds
Any changes that I made to my line, I asked if I could make them, which I do in every movie. So far everybody's been gracious enough to say yes. The only improvising I do is in the movies I do with Chris Guest, which is what we do.Collection: Guests
When you start to talk about comic books, a lot of the time, people forget about the comic part of it. They need to be funny.Collection: Book
I love to play real people... good people that I know the audience will get behind. It's the good people in the world that I gravitate to.Collection: Real
I never thought I'd be working with Sam [L.Jackson] .That's about as good as it gets.Collection: Good As It Gets
[The Man] was a case where it was a funny role teamed up with another actor. It's a great teaming. And the role was a bigger role. It wasn't so much that it was a co-starring role. This is not a new direction. I'm not saying, 'No. I'm only now co-starring.' It just happens it's a co-starring role.Collection: Men
We [me and Eugene Levy] both try to play the reality of a moment and don't try to impose humor on something where it doesn't belong. Contrary to what other people seem to think sometimes.Collection: Reality
I met [ Samuel L. Jackson ] for the first time on The Today Show. He came out of an elevator. I was promoting A Mighty Wind and he was promoting something else. He said, "I hear we're going to be working together." I said, "On what?" He said, 'The Man.' I hadn't heard his name mentioned before. I made a few calls and found out he had the script and was interested. That was it.Collection: Men
I've never considered myself a comedian. I'm a comedic actor.Collection: Comedian
It was fun to be in a scene again with [my wife LaTanya Richardson]. We used to do plays together all the time. We hadn't really worked together since Losing Isaiah [1995]. That was kind of early on in both of our cinematic careers. Things have changed a little bit since then.Collection: Fun
The [Oregon] Journal in its head and heart will stand for the people, be truly Democratic and free from political entanglements and machinations, believing in the principles that promise the greatest good to the greatest number-to ALL MEN, regardless of race, creed or previous condition of servitude... It will be a fair newspaper, not a dull and selfish sheet.Collection: Selfish
Young guys don't tend to want to portray people who have frailties or are less than macho.Collection: People
When people want me to sign an autograph in a restaurant, and I'm eating. I don't even have to say no, I just kind of stop and look at them ... "Oh, okay. I'll ... I'll come back."Collection: People