Val Kilmer
I can safely say that no one who has ever won an Oscar didn't want to win an Oscar.
I never had a business plan. I did, actually - I'm lying. My business plan was to get lucky, and I did; that was great. And then my second business plan was to get lucky again, and there, I faltered.
Hollywood is wonderful, but it does eat its young.
I think part of my reputation has to do with the difficult roles I've played. Actors do tend to get identified with their characters.
My children have absolutely no interest in my fame. They're very sophisticated, and they have a spiritual perspective on material things because we go to church.
I'm a character actor, but I look like a leading man.
It's the persona that makes you a leading actor. A leading actor has something extra that's fun to watch. But it isn't usually about acting.
It's a really weird thing, modern divorce. I found out I was getting divorced on television. That was kind of weird.
There's nothing good about divorce.
My father was raised in the mountains of New Mexico, and he picked cotton for a dollar a day. He was working for the family from the time he was 7.
There are lots of actors who are awful people, but nobody talks about them being awful because they've made billions.
Peter Sellers was just a brilliant actor, and also comedic.
One out of 100 citizens of the U.S. is going to prison, and it's not that the system is making criminals, it's that it's making criminals better criminals. We're breeding them like rats and it has to change.
I am not an American; I am the American.
I've never been that comfortable talking about myself or about acting.
I live on a ranch that's larger than Manhattan. That's a weird circumstance.
I never cultivated a personality. Almost everyone who is really famous has cultivated a personality.
Warren Beatty once told me that if someone's really stuck on you, find them their next boyfriend. But I could never do that.
It's fun to look at people that are so good at acting that aren't actors, like David Bowie creating a mystique about rock n' roll.
A wonderful but kind of a terrible truth about acting is that you actually get to a point where you become content with an impossible task: it is really impossible to properly prepare. You kind of have to start over every time.
I would probably do anything with David Mamet. He's so great. I just love his writing.
News isn't even the truth on television.
I've been very fortunate and met the guys that have become, basically, philosophers and have a kind of sensibility about life that's very precious.
There is no normal life, there's just life. You live it.Collection: Meaningful
I liked being Doc Holliday. It's fun to be insightful and aristocratic, to stand up for your friend and make sacrifices for him. It was fun to be arrogant like he was and have the goods to back it up. He was a very noble character. Although, let's not forget, he did kill a lot of people.Collection: Fun
I saw the horizon. It's out there. And though I may not ever be able to touch it, it's worth reaching for.Collection: Dream
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.Collection: Being Yourself
I don't make any pretense about being normal. I'm not.Collection: Normal
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.Collection: Humility
If you know where your spiritual center is, and you neglect it, peace will always allude you.Collection: Spiritual
It may or may not sound pretentious. But I`ve turned down, consciously and specifically, many jobs I knew would have been a pretty surefire way to go about making a lot of money, being recognized and gaining power in the industry.Collection: Jobs
Once is more than generous for any lifetime.Collection: Lifetime
Do what you like to do so well that someone will pay you wages for it.Collection: Wages
Give me the compliments. I love compliments. I was born modest, but it wore off.Collection: Giving
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.Collection: Character
You never quiet the love message. Never.Collection: Messages
I think spiritual perception comes from natural and healthy relationship to the land and I've had that. I get an easy, automatic sense of myself in nature, a wholeness and I feel nowhere else. I think people should live where praying is most immediate. That`s why I live in New Mexico. The physical terrain, the feeling, the environment and culture improve my life just by waking up there.Collection: Spiritual
My only "business plan" was to get lucky.Collection: Lucky
You just don't understand humility until you have children and get divorced. I was very hurt and very angry and so was she. But when kids are involved, you either become friends with respect or you become mortal enemies.Collection: Hurt
It looked like it might not work out with Michael Keaton, so they asked Joel Schumacher, `Who do you want for Batman?` When he said me, I asked my agent, `Why? Who did they not get?` I`d met with Joel a couple of times before about other (movies). I didn`t know anything in terms of the cast, story or anything, but I said, `Sure, sounds like fun.` - On accepting his role as Batman.Collection: Couple
My only challenge is to entertain. And I accomplish my task better when I myself am entertained by what I am doing. I am very critical of myself, I constantly set the bar higher and higher. I try to surpass myself. That`s all. But I also know how to preserve myself, to not let myself get bedazzled by the smoke and mirrors.Collection: Mirrors
I don't believe in death. I think it's just a state of mind.Collection: Believe
Performing in a live theater is absolutely unbeatable. It is something I have done my entire life and have a gift, it seems, for sharing thoughts live.Collection: Done
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.Collection: Stars
New Mexico is my home. It has never been anything but home. The ranch has rivers and canyon, everything imaginable. I can ride, hunt and fish. At the same time, ranching is grueling, difficult work. It`s like acting, to be successful at it, you have to work hard. I take it very seriously.Collection: Hard Work
I was in love with Tina Goodman since I was three and her parents came popping out of the trash cans. I think it made a big impression on me.Collection: Thinking
My first girlfriend in high school, I had a girlfriend in grade school, but my first girlfriend in high school was Mare Winningham, very fine actress.Collection: Girlfriend
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.Collection: Ignorance
I was looking for projects, as you always are, and I read this scene . . . and I'm in the Hollywood Hills. So I thought, 'This is interesting.' You have this setup that seems to be based in some reality and you can only wonder where Black's going to go with this.Collection: Reality