The life of an action star is very short. I want to be an actor like Robert De Niro, like Dustin Hoffman or Clint Eastwood who in their 70s or 80s can still act.

Well, in order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times.

I like to change characters and then, slowly I believe the audience treat me as, like an actor who can fight. It’s not like an action star.

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.

Morgan Freeman is so class. He’s so cool. He’s so scary.

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.

One of the great pleasures of going to see a Daniel Day-Lewis film: you haven’t seen him in five years. Where have you been? So, it’s a special event, right? Well, if you want to go see a movie that I’m in, it still may be a special event for you, but, you don’t feel like you don’t know where I’ve been.

There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.

I like Ryan Gosling as an actor. I watch all of his movies, and he’s Canadian and I just like his swag. I read his interviews and I’m a big fan of his.

There’s no real excuse for being successful enough as an actor to do what you want and then selling out. You do it pure. You don’t try to adapt it, make it commercial.

I don’t want to be an action star; action star’s life is so short. I want my life to get longer. I want my career to get longer.

It’s easy to become very self-critical when you’re an actor. Then you get critiqued by the critics. Whether you agree with them or not, people are passing judgment on you.

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn’t bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn’t have any brains. I didn’t know what I was doing there. That’s why I became an actor.

Black or white good parts are hard to come by. A good actor with a good opportunity has a shot; without the opportunity it doesn’t matter how good you are.

I’m tired of fighting. I’ve always known that I can’t be an action star all my life.

I’ll continue to make the typical Adam Sandler comedies.

In order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times. That is what we do.

I got started as an actor when I was 12.

Actors I admire? Ed Harris, or course, I think he’s terrific; because I know he always had to fight being what he looked like a lot, but I think he’s a terrific actor.

I’m not really an actor, I’m a reactor; I’m a pitchman. That’s what I do best. Nobody can do it any better.

I have an immense amount of respect for acting. I’ve always loved movies and was always fascinated by movie-making. But to become an actor, I wanted to commit myself.

I love Steve Carell.

My name is Adam Sandler. I’m not particularly talented. I’m not particularly good-looking. And yet I’m a multi-millionaire.

I’ve known Ben Stiller for a minute. One of my first movies was ‚Along Came Polly.‘

Our stories come from our lives and from the playwright’s pen, the mind of the actor, the roles we create, the artistry of life itself and the quest for peace.

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.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of his violin. What if everybody jumped on his violin?

Actor’s life is very long.

I came to Hollywood and within a decade I was one of the biggest action stars of all time.

When you are an actor, you have to stay inside this world, but when you are with the crew, on the outside, you are in the dirt, working through all the issues. It’s just a different way of working, and I think I preferred it.

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’m not Russell Crowe. I’m not going to do a period piece.

I loved cowboy movies when I was a kid. When I was five years old, I was already wearing a cowboy hat and suit. When I grew up, I knew John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Kirk Douglas and so on.

While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.

Movies were invented for Jimmy Cagney, and he was invented for the movies. A perfect match.

Barbra Streisand has accomplished so much, and Dustin Hoffman as well. They are down to earth and approachable. I admire that.

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

I want to be an Asian Robert De Niro.

I met Will Smith twice. I didn’t talk to him for too long but I was trying to let him know that my age group grew up watching him – he was the coolest guy on television and the coolest guy in movies.

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 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.

There is a need for aloneness, which I don’t think most people realise for an actor. It’s almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you’ll let the whole world in on only for a moment, when you’re acting. But everybody is always tugging at you. They’d all like sort of a chunk of you.

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, ‚I want to get out and become like him‘. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

I’ve always said the one advantage an actor has of converting to a director is that he’s been in front of the camera. He doesn’t have to get in front of the camera again, subliminally or otherwise.

The knighthood was a tremendous honour, I don’t dismiss it. But I feel embarrassed by the flowery, theatrical stuff that goes with being an actor.

I am capable of holding the quote-unquote ‚title‘ of leading man. Leading man just means people want to see you and assume that you can hold a film, carry a movie.

Nothing is so discouraging to an actor than to have to work for long hours upon hours in brightly lighted interior sets.

The challenge for me as an actor is if you become a celebrity, you don’t meet strangers anymore. And strangers are where we have our anonymity. And I believe it’s essential for the soul to be anonymous, especially if you’re going to be an actor.

I enjoyed working with Stephen Merchant. He was wonderful. I’ve been such a big fan of his acting.

As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner’s medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it’s three-Michelin’s stars, there’s no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.

If you look at my job, my union card, it says ‚actor.‘ It don’t say nothing about celebrity, movie star, nothing like that, and that’s one thing that keeps me humble.

I just wanted to be a composer; I became an actor by default, really. I got a scholarship to a college of music and drama, hoping to take a scholarship in music. But I ended up as an acting student, so I’ve stuck with that for the last 50-odd years.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument.