Overall, when I look at my career, I was lucky and blessed.
2
With my generation, we were very lucky when we came to Hollywood, because we still had a chance to work with the legends. We aren't legends, you can't be a legend today. Clint [Clint Eastwood] and Redford [Robert Redford] are the closest thing we have.
3
Comedy is not about appearing funny, so the more honestly you play it, the better it is.
4
They were legends because nobody knew what they were doing after school.
5
You know what the greatest remedy on earth is today? It's not a pill. It's not a shot. It's a hug.
6
[on Susannah York] Susannah York, I had no idea what a tremendous actor she was. She was flat-out great.
7
[on being offered a role in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)] It's the week before Christmas, 1968, and my agent calls: "Bruce, you won't believe this. I got a call from Sydney Pollack." I said, "What are you talking about?" He said, "He's doing another movie, and he wants you in it. He says he apologizes because it's not much of a part. It's certainly not an improvement over the last part, but he offered you the Scott Wilson role and you didn't want to take it because you didn't want to be in Yugoslavia five months. "Do you blame me?" "No, it ended up being seven. You were smart. He's doing a movie called "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?", and he said you and a girl named Bonnie Bedelia, who hasn't acted before, are going to be partners. It's about dance marathons, and he wants you for two reasons: one, you play a country bumpkin and you win the contest; two, he needs somebody who can show the actors what it's like to go take after take after take because Bonnie is pregnant in the movie and you've got to haul her every day, derby after derby. Twice each day, they're raced twelve laps around the floor to music. The last three couples are eliminated. Sydney wants to shoot it like that. He's going to eliminate the couples except for the two starring couples, Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin, and Red Buttons and Allyn Ann McLerie. Everybody else gets eliminated, including Susannah York." Susannah York should've won an Oscar for The Killing of Sister George (1968). He's going to eliminate her?" "He's going to eliminate whoever finishes last. He can't eliminate you because you and Bonnie win the contest in the book. And you're not going to be the last".
8
[on the influence of Lawrence of Arabia (1962)] If there's anything I'm proud about in Nebraska (2013), it's that it's hard to see the work going on. In Lawrence, there's something going on -- it's there. It's about life. Watching that old generation like Lean and O'Toole, that knowledge, that excitement, that passion infects you and infects you in a good way. You want to make 'em proud, even though they're not here anymore.
9
[on Lawrence of Arabia (1962)] I saw David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia in 1962. I'd been an actor for four years. All my life, I've been fascinated by people that get shit done. T.E. Lawrence got stuff done. And the movie is just about perfect in every single category: lighting, camera, clothing, script, story, performances. There was an intermission, and it was worth the wait -- I couldn't wait until the second half. What shocked me was, the first thing they shot for the movie was the beginning of the second half, the arrival of Lawrence with his bodyguards. Those guys, who look like the baddest asses that ever lived, came in on horses and camels. Peter O'Toole's got the white garb on, and you realize he's a guy who's got some homies that can play.
10
[on meeting Marilyn Monroe at the Actors Studio] She leaned over to me and, I'd never met her - she's Marilyn Monroe, I'm Brucy from Winnetka - and she said, "Oh, you're Gadge's new wunderkind, aren't you?" And I said, "Oh, come on please. He doesn't say that." She said, 'Yes, he does. He also says nobody's going to know who you are until you're in your late 60s.".
11
[on Alexander Payne] I may put Alexander as the best director I ever worked with. When he looks through the eyepiece of a camera, he sees something no one else sees. He sees magic. And his gift is, he can explain how and why he sees magic and put it on film.
12
[on Elia Kazan] Kazan, I don't care what his politics were - the man had game. He knew how to see a movie before it began.
13
[on the possibility of being pushed for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in Nebraska (2013)] My take is this: the story is about who Woody is and where he's going. It's probably 50-50 screen time with Will Forte, but Woody is a leading role. If I go supporting, I'm a whore. Because I never came to Hollywood to win an award. I came to do good movies. If I go supporting, it's embarrassing to the Academy because it looks like I'm trying to sneak in somehow so I can eat all those chicken and peas dinners. I'd rather go the right way than backdoor my way into a supporting because of my age or whatever. I would be thrilled if I was nominated, and to have a nomination is the win.
14
[2013, observation on his career] I knew it would be longer than a marathon. I was in a hurry only to get the opportunities that my peers were getting. That never came along until Nebraska (2013). I'm going to one-hundred. I'm going to play roles people will never forget.
15
The roles I got were the ones 15 guys turned down. Seventeen people turned down Silent Running (1972)... I got panicky financially, spiritually. I got to feeling maybe people weren't seeing the work that I could do, either because the movies weren't good, or maybe I wasn't good in the movies.
16
That's a part of my personality that has not been seen before in a movie. If there's anything Bruce hasn't been in his career, it's still. I didn't want to be Bruce. I'd been Bruce, and it didn't work.
17
[on The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971)] I look on it as a fond memory. It brought me together with my wife. The film was a nightmare to make, but I got married with the money I made from that movie: $1750.
18
I haven't had many love affairs on-screen. In The Great Gatsby (1974), I had one with Karen Black. Then I broke her nose.
19
[on Charlton Heston] And I got to really like the guy. A lot of people told me that I wouldn't like him, but I liked him. And he tried very hard. I mean, Will Penny (1967) is far and away the best thing he's ever done.
20
[on Peter Fonda] In The Trip (1967) I started to get fed up. I was fed up because Peter Fonda was a star and I wasn't. And Peter couldn't act. I'm sorry, man, he just can't act. He never bothered to sit and learn. He never studied. And he just kind of larked out. Now I don't begrudge the fact that he has talent. But he's not an actor, by any stretch of the imagination.
21
[on James Dean] Dean was so real. I believed he was the real person, that he wasn't acting. See, I never thought Rock Hudson was real. Or any of the guys in the forefront then -- Gregory Peck, Paul Newman and them.
22
I'm only too proud to say that I've never had ANY discipline problems with Laura [Laura Dern, his daughter]. In fact, I never needed to lay a hand on her, because Diane [Diane Ladd, his former wife and Laura's mother] was so much better at keeping her in line than I was.
23
I never look back and say, "I wish I had played that role or this role". I never do that. You're only as good as your next film. I look forward; I always feel that you have to continue onward and upward, you can't look back. I became an actor because I felt I was interested in what makes human beings do what they do, particularly in times of crisis. That kind of acting is what I like to do.
24
[on his fight scene with John Wayne] He walloped me bad.
25
I've played more psychotics and freaks and dopers than anyone.
26
Because I'm the only actor who ever killed John Wayne in a picture, producers have pegged me for a villain.
