“The most dangerous thing for an actor is to refuse to listen to anyone else, to feel you know more than anybody.”
“Love? It’s over exaggerated. There are many forms of love, of course, like love for a child or a parent, love for dogs or plants or fried chicken. I love loving, but being in love with someone has been too romanticized. People have come to expect much more of it than there really is.”
“Fright is one of the worst things in the world. I’ve been plenty frightened at times, like when I was in an automobile accident, a head-on collision. I remember I was so frightened my hands wouldn’t work. A terrible feeling, like a disease you can’t control. I don’t like things I can’t control.”
“I have no philosophy about acting or anything else. You just do it. And I mean that. You just do it. However, I can say that with ease after thirty-five years. You go to a newcomer and say “just do it,” and it doesn’t mean dits, does it? You’ve got to do the big circle to come back and be able to say “You just do it.”
“Someone asked me once what my philosophy of life was, and I said some crazy thing. I should have said, how the hell do I know?”
“I am not happy that I am sick. I am not happy that I have AIDS. But if that is helping others, I can at least know my own misfortune has had some positive worth.”
“Why don’t you put that in the headline: ‘He Only Did Three With Doris!’ Set a lot of people straight.”
“I’m notorious for giving a bad interview. I’m an actor and I can’t help but feel I’m boring when I’m on as myself.”
“I had to overcome the name Rock. If I’d been as hip then as I am now, I would have never consented to be named Rock.”
“I like to work with new actors; it’s sort of a little game I have with myself. I love to watch them, to see what they do, what they come up with, if they’re inventive. Their ideas may not work all the time, but it’s important that they have something more than an ability to memorize lines.”
“As you get older, you learn to keep your mouth shut more, because you never know how badly you’re going to embarrass yourself later.”