I wouldn’t use the word ‚scared‘ for my role as Hitchcock, but it was my most insecure. Taking on such a formidable, giant personality such as Hitchcock; he was one of the great geniuses of world cinema. Sheer genius.

I love playing ego and insecurity combined.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

Michelle Pfeiffer hasn’t been finding a lot of work recently because she doesn’t like what a woman her age is offered. That’s a real double standard. You get Sean Connery, who gets older and older, still playing opposite young ladies, but it doesn’t work the other way around.

If a star or studio chief or any other great movie personages find themselves sitting among a lot of nobodies, they get frightened – as if somebody was trying to demote them.

I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll be a great actress.

On ‚Think Like a Man,‘ they got the best out of me because they allowed me to bring my own cadences and opinions to the character that I was playing. I think we got the best of that particular character.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

The only difference between Benito and Bad Bunny is 16 million followers on Instagram. And the money that Bad Bunny has in the bank. Benito had, like, $7. The numbers are different, but I’m still the same. Even my insecurities remain the same.

I don’t know what acting is, but I enjoy it.

Only the insecure strive for security.

Acting is just a process of relaxation, actually. Knowing the text so well and trusting that the instinct and the subconscious mind, whatever you want to call it, is going to take over.

I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.

Acting is a nice childish profession – pretending you’re someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

There has to be something in every role that interests you.

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.

Oh yes. I’m an actor, so I just learn my lines, and show up and do it. I gave it a little bit of thought.

It’s really fun to put yourself into a character – into shoes you wouldn’t normally be in.

Genius goes around the world in its youth incessantly apologizing for having large feet. What wonder that later in life it should be inclined to raise those feet too swiftly to fools and bores.

True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.

I’ve been fortunate. I don’t pick scripts. Scripts pick me.

Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.

I’ve done films where we don’t rehearse, and I’ve done films where we heavily rehearse. I like rehearsals.

I’ve always been amazed by Da Vinci, because he worked out science on his own. He would work by drawing things and writing down his ideas. Of course, he designed all sorts of flying machines way before you could actually build something like that.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

Leaders who are kind of insecure or egocentric, they basically sabotage themselves.

I wouldn’t put myself forward to do a film like ‚Changeling‘ if I thought I couldn’t pull people into a story because of all the other ways people see me.

The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.

I can’t act!

I used to have insecurity about my finances, then I announced that I had debt, and now I don’t have any insecurities.

I think I have had so much blessing – I’ve had my brother, who was brilliant – I think my family came closest to making a genius when they made my brother – Bailey was just all of that. He loved me.

I’m proud to be an actor. See, as an actor, you live longer. Football players, the brain and all that stuff, ooh-eee, that’s not good.

All of the Vines that were acted & setup & had nice cameras, those weren’t the good Vines. The good Vines were, like, a random little kid in the middle of a forest, like, yelling.

I enjoy acting when you really hit it right.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it’s unbelievable!

When you’re supposed to be close and friends in the film, the moment you’re talking as friends off the set, it makes it that much better when you’re filming.

Meryl and Katharine Hepburn are probably the two greatest actresses of this and the last century.

Today, I’d like to talk to Bob Marley. I’d just like to ask him what was his method. Bob is one of the greatest songwriters ever. I don’t know if people understand how powerful his songs are and the simplicity and genius behind them, from ‚Redemption Song‘ to ‚Is This Love?‘ and ‚I Shot the Sheriff.‘

I’ve always loved the idea of playing Black Adam.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

I seem to be getting a lot of things pushed my way that are strong women. It’s like people see Hackers and they send me offers to play tough women with guns, the kind who wear no bra and a little tank top. I’d like to play strong women who are also very feminine.

Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.

Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

I’ve done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.

I want to show audiences I can act.

People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.

Something I learned as an actor was which scenes needed to be rehearsed and which actors are good with rehearsal, which actors learn from it, and which ones grow stale because they start to second-guess themselves.

My mom always wanted me to be an actor. And I started going to theater and going on auditions young.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

My role 14 years ago in Richard III – that was the first time I played a bad guy and learned a lot about it – they have all the fun!

I’ve always felt toward the slightest scene, even if all I had to do in a scene was just to come in and say, ‚Hi,‘ that the people ought to get their money’s worth and that this is an obligation of mine, to give them the best you can get from me.

This has been my life for many years; one role feeds the other.

I don’t ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It’s like, ‚Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.‘

When I started out, I didn’t have any desire to be an actress or to learn how to act. I just wanted to be famous.

There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

See, ‚A Time to Kill‘ was the one I got famous off of. Big ka-boom, over one weekend. After that, I did films that I really wanted to do.

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.