Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
All Quotes by author - Brian Cox
" Actors in general have become very spoiled in the roles they choose these days. When I first started in this profession - about a hundred years ago in the last century - it was all about taking risks, it was about doing the job and honing the craft. "
Doing
Taking Risks
Risks
" Ah, there's a director. Astonishing, Spike Lee. A feisty guy, but a guy who's, I think, incredibly misunderstood. I think people review his politics or his color as opposed to his filmmaking sometimes. Because he's a wonderful, wonderful filmmaker and a lover of the art. "
Politics
Art
Think
" As a boy, I was never interested in theater because I came from a working-class Scottish home. I thought, 'I want to do movies.' Then it was finding the means to do it. "
Finding
Home
Movies
" Even the Australians don't know how beautiful their own country is. Particularly where we were shooting 'The Straits.' Most of my stuff was done on an aboriginal settlement on the south shore, opposite Cairns, which I believe was the site where the last person was eaten in Australia. "
Believe
Done
Beautiful
" Feudal societies don't create great cinema; we have great theatre. The egalitarian societies create great cinema. The Americans, the French. Because equality is sort of what the cinema deals with. It deals with stories which don't fall into 'Everybody in their place and who's who,' and all that. But the theatre's full of that. "
Equality
Place
Great
" For me, it's just acting. It's pretending. The best actors are children, and children don't do research. You never see a child going, 'I'm wondering about my motivation here. How can I do this toy? How can I do this train? I don't feel train.' "
Research
You
Child
" I actually went to see 'Rushmore,' and I came late, and I missed myself. It was great, that scene. I caught that scene the other day on TV, funny enough, the first scene that you see with Jason Schwartzman and myself, where we talk about his grades. That's a brilliant scene, and I have to say, we play it brilliantly. "
Day
Enough
Funny
" I always think I look like the Elephant Man - I can't get used to my own image. "
Own
Elephant
Look
" I come from a working class community in eastern Scotland, and I've always been a populist, though not a patronising populist. "
Class
Community
Come
" I did a film in which Andy Garcia and Michael Keaton both played the leads, 'Desperate Measures,' and interestingly enough it was their biggest payday. The film didn't do well, and it kind of marked their careers. They've done less since. It all changed. "
Changed
Well
Kind
" I didn't have this feeling that I should be a leading actor in the cinema. And I wouldn't want the responsibility of the opening weekend. "
Feeling
Weekend
Responsibility
" I enjoy acting now more than I ever have. I've had lots of difficult times when I was younger, but that was all tied up with thwarted ambition. It's hard being a young actor, because you don't realise until later that it's only ever about doing the work. "
Work
Enjoy
Young
" I'm 100% Celt. In fact, I'm directly related to the progenitor of the high kings of Ireland, Niall of the Nine Hostages. "
Fact
Kings
Nine
" In a sense I feel very much a part of the cinema now in a way where when I come back to the theater now I feel like a visitor. The cinema is really what I enjoy. I want to do more independent movies. "
Enjoy
Feel
Movies
" I think I must be the only British actor who's played both Stalin and Trotsky. I need to play Lenin so I can make it a triptych. "
Actor
Think
Play
" I used to do a lot of fencing in the theater and a lot of horse riding in the early days, so I'm used to it in a way. If you're classically trained like I am, it's a little bit like mother's milk to me. I enjoy it. "
Mother
You
Enjoy
" I've always wanted to make a film. "
Film
Make
Wanted
" I was living in London and I thought, 'There's nothing here for me anymore.' I don't want to become this actor who's going to be doing this occasional good work in the theater and then ever diminishing bad television. I thought I'd rather do bad movies than bad television because you get more money for it. "
Good Work
Money
Thought
" People always make that mistake when they talk about theatre - the notion of the 'theatrical' meaning something separate from life. If it doesn't relate to life, it doesn't relate to anything. "
Life
Theatre
Meaning
" The fact is that Hollywood, from as early as the sixties to the present time, has ghettoized cinema into the big industry, a marketing industry. In doing this, the audiences have lost touch with the aspects of film which were to be informative and educational and even spiritual. "
Time
Lost
Early
" The hardest thing to do in movies is be a day-part player. You have to go in, make your mark, and get out. There's a lot of leading actors who are not good for a lot of a movie, and then suddenly they have good moments, and they're like stepping-stones across a particularly feisty stream. They build careers out of that. "
Build
Go
You
" The heritage of a British actor revolves around the challenges of playing the classic roles to meet certain levels of success as an actor. In America, the heritage of an actor is based on cinema mainly. "
America
Challenges
Heritage
" The problem is that the U.K. in essence is a feudal society. It's everyone in their place. "
Problem
Everyone
Society
" There are characters that have made me uncomfortable. I did a film called 'Rob Roy,' and I played Killearn, who was this sort of greasy fallen-angel character who was voyeuristic and sleazy and really unpleasant. It was a great role, but I didn't especially enjoy living with this awful man for the length of time it took to make the movie. "
Time
Me
Man
" The trouble with New York today is that it's lost its balance. I love the new, greener New York, but it takes all kinds of worlds to make a World. "
Love
Balance
New York
" Unlike New Zealand, which has nothing especially predatory, Australia is full of spiders and crocodiles and all kinds of animals that will eat you and sting you. "
Nothing
You
Animals
Check our other websites:
BookDark
MusicDark