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

My favorite movies of all times is ‚Doctor Zhivago,‘ and I love ‚Gone With the Wind.‘ I’d love to play some Southern belle or something where I owned a plantation.

I was asked to act when I couldn’t act. I was asked to sing ‚Funny Face‘ when I couldn’t sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn’t dance – and do all kinds of things I wasn’t prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.

I like having my hands in the clay. I like the movie-making process.

The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

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 got started as an actor when I was 12.

I want to play a fireman and a spy. I want to learn special effects.

Everybody thinks making films back to back is a big deal but they did it all the time in the old days.

I don’t have a vast longing for the stage.

I think if you make a good movie, people walk away arguing.

I was acting when I was playing baseball.

Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.

Studies have identified a significant ‚skills gap‘ between what students are currently being taught and the skills employers are seeking in today’s global economy. Our children must be better prepared than they are now to meet the future challenges of our ever-changing world.

And of course to work with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, and work with a wonderful, beautiful script directed by Nancy Meyers, it was really for me a dream come true.

I want to make a good, solid kung fu movie.

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

Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.

The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.

I work all day, do research, sketch my ideas, prepare for performances.

When I prepare, I am not messing around. I find the right places, the right people, and the right environment. Iceland is one of those places.

I’ve been really fortunate to be able to do different kinds of films in different scales, different genres, different kinds of roles, and that is important to me.

If I didn’t have my films as an outlet for all the different sides of me, I would probably be locked up.

It’s very rare that you get a director that lets you be creative and bring what you feel your character should do or should be.

How you go about testing is just very different to just being in the situation of qualifying, having to go out, having to nail the lap.

My act is an exaggeration of a part of me. I’m much more expressive off stage.

Dakota Fanning is a child, but she is a wonderful actor. I don’t know what a child actor is. She’s an actor who’s a child.

It takes a smart man to play dumb.

If you look at me in ‚Ride Along,‘ even though I’m playing two different characters, my demeanor and my tone were not aggressive.

In America there’s no way I can make the kind of movie I like to make.

You just don’t know when you get in the editing room what you will need as a link or a tool for a transition. If you’re in a room, and there’s a kettle boiling, get a shot of it. Don’t worry if people think you’re nuts.

I have a love interest in every one of my films: a gun.

Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four.

None of the films I’ve done was designed for a mass audience, except for ‚Indiana Jones.‘ Nobody in their right mind thought ‚American Graffiti‘ or ‚Star Wars‘ would work.

When one has finished building one’s house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know in the worst way – before one began.

If you have to stand and fight, you train yourself so that you’re able to do it.

I say luck is when an opportunity comes along and you’re prepared for it.

It’s hard work making movies. It’s like being a doctor: you work long hours, very hard hours, and it’s emotional, tense work. If you don’t really love it, then it ain’t worth it.

I like the idea of working in different genres and transcending genres and hopefully finding success, and ultimately make movies people like.

I always had a sense of discipline in me. However, there was a time when I couldn’t divide my time properly between off-field things and on-field assignments. The focus would be missing at times, and that would affect my preparation for matches. I managed to change that.

You know when you’re young and you see a play in high school, and the guys all have gray in their hair and they’re trying to be old men and they have no idea what that’s like? It’s just that stupid the other way around.

I’m not a photographer, so I didn’t get into F-stops or ND filters or background, foreground, cross-light, all that stuff. But I was interested in the camera and the lenses. That’s the world that I’m moving in, in terms of acting and giving a performance.

I just make good movies. That’s the way I thank my fans.

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

I try to prepare for everything beyond the extent of preparation.

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.

The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.

I am able to play monsters well. I understand monsters. I understand madmen.

A lot of artists fail when they try to act, and they flop. So when I get into acting, it’s going to be to do it well, something good, something of quality. I want people to say, ‚Wow, that movie‘ – or that show or whatever – ‚turned out really well.‘

God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness in heaven, and if it takes my dog being there, I believe he’ll be there.

I have been trying to retire to the back of the camera for quite a few years, and in 1970, when I first started directing, I said, ‚If I could pull this off, I can some day move to the back of the camera and stay there.‘

I think all those actors from that generation, like Bogart – they were wonderful actors. They didn’t act. They just came on and they did it, and the characters were wonderful.

When you walk into my classroom, I’m going to give it to you straight, just like in the real world, because that’s the only way to prepare you for the real world.

I will make action movies, I think, for a few more years, another five years.

Most people don’t like change. They revolt against it unless they can clearly see the advantage it brings. For that reason, when good leaders prepare to take action or make changes, they take people through a process to get them ready for it.

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 can’t tell you the number of times I looked down at what was going on on the ground, or I was engaged in a fight somewhere, and I knew within a couple of minutes how I was going to screw up the enemy. And I knew it because I’d done so much reading.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

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.

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

You don’t know when you’re being watched. That’s one of the weird things about celebrity. It’s my least favorite part of acting, celebrity.