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’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.

Acting is happy agony.

I think that promoting insecurity in the form of plastic surgery is infinitely more harmful than an artistic expression related to body modification.

In every movie I do have a dialogue.

I think that feminists have definitely underestimated the role that women have had historically. I think I would be insecure if I were to be a man; there’s so much pressure on you.

I do admire Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen, but I’m a philistine. I like the good life too much; I’m not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.

I enjoy acting when you really hit it right.

Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.

The role of the intellectual cannot be to excuse the violence of one side and condemn that of the other.

In acting, you have to pull from real-life situations, from people, to help develop a character.

What I do is just go over and over and over my lines and learn the script so well that I can just be easy and relaxed. That’s the way I always work.

I want to try something different in Hollywood, to tell the audience I am not just an actor star – I am an actor, too.

I’ve played real people before, but I never knew them.

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

I would love to sign on to do a movie if it was the right role and if it was the right script, because I would be taking time away from music to tell a big grand story, and spend all of my time and pouring all of my emotions into being someone else. So for me to do that, it would have to be a story worth telling.

Folks don’t like to have somebody around knowing more than they do.

It’s much more fun to play something you’re nothing like than what you are… It’s much easier to hide yourself in a character.

I’ve never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves – it’s just a question of finding the subject.

I love playing ego and insecurity combined.

Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat. This, by the way, is the case even if the ego is outwardly very confident.

I was ashamed to admit I was hipped to the idea of acting. That’s why I started in with the props.

I like to hide behind the characters I play. Despite the public perception, I am a very private person who has a hard time with the fame thing.

Me not finishing school – in my head, I still have this insecurity when I’m talking to someone educated.

We’re all insecure, aren’t we? I’m not walking around like I’m macho man or anything.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

I never wanted to stay in one genre; I never wanted to be pigeon-holed or defined as the actor who only worked in one genre. I want to be able to work in all different genres. For me it’s fun, and that’s how I grow as an actor.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.

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.

Actors know what actors are insecure about – and they’re all insecure.

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.

Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

We think it’s fun for our kids to have cameos and join us on set, but not to be actors. That’s not our goal for Brad and me at all. I think we would both prefer that they didn’t become actors.

It takes a smart man to play dumb.

I worked with Lawrence Olivier some years ago. He was a great mentor.

Genius is patience.

I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I’m like, ‚My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don’t have it. I just want to chill.‘ We all have self-doubt. You don’t deny it, but you also don’t capitulate to it. You embrace it.

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.

Act well your part, there all the honour lies.

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

I’ve got no need to prove to myself that I can do Shakespeare. I’ve done it.

In the beginning, I was very insecure. I hated how I looked in pictures.

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

Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting. But you can go from acting to being a TV personality to being a radio personality to being a writer to being a producer, to just being a visionary, to voiceover work.

It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.

The goal for me is always to have the opportunity to work in different genres. This is a great and exciting time in my career, where I can have the opportunity to work in different genres, and also I recognize there’s not a lot of actors who have that opportunity and I’m grateful for it.

Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life.

Man who invented the hamburger was smart; man who invented the cheeseburger was a genius.

Genius, when young, is divine.

The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.

I was a very shy character, always feeling uncomfortable because everybody was stronger than I, and always afraid I would look like a sissy. Everybody else played baseball; everybody else did all kinds of athletic things.

Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.