Top 128 Quotes & Sayings by Bryan Cranston - Page 2

When you're an actor in grade school, high school, college, whatever, you start to realize what you're really good at, what you're kinda good at, what you're okay at, and you start to compartmentalize. But if you know yourself and what you're capable of, it's just a matter of opportunity.

Viewers can determine what they want to watch and what they don't want to watch.

When I was a kid there were a very select few channels - programmes had to have more of a large appeal and they just didn't offer very much. Now you have a situation where the television world has expanded and there's hundreds of channels.

There's so many things that can go wrong in the execution of a project like a television show or a movie, so many little elements, any number of things, all the way to marketing - like they could market it poorly and nobody finds it and down it goes.

I think, and I mean this sincerely, I was raised humbly. We were a lower middle income family and a household that was scrimping by at times. We were watching the dollar, stretching the dollar, and coupons. It was all those things.

I'm not crazy about being out of control, and I get emotional when things are unclean. When things are out of order. When things are messy. Because I lived in a mess as a child.

If you like vanilla, you're not going to like 'Breaking Bad' - you need to like a specific flavor that is unusual, that is different, that takes risks.

When you're directing an ongoing series, the tone has already been set. So a director will come in and fulfill that tone - reinforce the characters and their behavior. The challenge is to find unique ways that you can visually tell the story while keeping the established tone and the pace and the characters.

Something's happened in our society which I don't think is beneficial, and that's that you see the public being fed box-office news. Newscasts now, every local station - I've been traveling around the country a lot, and you see the local news, and they give box-office reports.

You get addicted to emotions. Our endorphins kick in and it's like a high. On the low end you might love roller coasters. On the high end you might be a bank robber or something.

I intend to do more directing TV.

Every time you start a project, you're hopeful that the critics receive it warmly.

I'm a big fan of 'Mad Men.'

It's up to the actor to make sure they don't get typecast.

Our whole society is instantaneous.

Any kind of civil rights oppression is wrong.

Ever since I stopped worrying about finances, I've made more money than I ever thought I'd make in my life.

I don't think life owes me anything and the business doesn't owe me anything. The only way to approach it is by working hard and loving what you do. If you do that and have faith, maybe you will get lucky. I mean that sincerely and specifically. I truly believe that no professional career in the arts is capable without a healthy dose of luck.

It's cyclical. I'm riding a wave right now, and I recognize that. I wanna do as much work as I can, do the best I can. And when it's all said and done and they say, "Get outta the water, you're done," I wanna be so exhausted that I look forward to it.

Let me demonstrate. When you greet a friend this is the duration of the kiss that's acceptable. "Hi, good to see you - yeah." When you make a mistake and stay too long at the lips, this is how long it is. "Hi, how are you? Good to see you." And that's what happened. It was like, "Uh-oh, what was that? Oh."

When you play a non-fiction character it is more responsibility than when you are playing a fiction character because that person lived, and you do want to pay respect to that.

I want to be done, and actually, go "I had a good run. No regrets. I'm ready to step aside."

When 'Malcolm in the Middle' was over, I was looking for a drama more than a comedy...but if it was a comedy that came up, it would have to be as well-written as 'Malcolm' was, and it would have to be a different kind of character than I played on that show. That's harder to come by. In drama, there were more opportunities, more options for me, and when I read ('Breaking Bad'), it was just, 'Good night, Nurse! I'm going after this sucker!'

I was just infused with ideas and I would dream about it and wake up and go, "Oh, I have another idea about Walter White." It was so well written. And it just got into my soul.

It's like a dance, to choreograph a fight is like a dance. It's very specific. You have to carefully plan it out. Because if someone gets hurt, then we didn't do our job, someone screwed up. The fight choreographers and the actors involved, we messed up somewhere.

I don't wanna have anything left in the tank.

In fact, I told our dear friends, the Burrell boys, five boys lived next door to us. "Why, we don't see your dad anymore?" "Oh, yeah. Yeah. He" - I lied. I said, "He comes home at night when you guys are in bed. He gets us up and we play." I said it so much that I started to believe it myself, you know?

Take a chance. Take a risk. Find that passion and rekindle it. Fall in love all over again. It`s really worth it.

Actors basically are the type of person that with three seconds left, we want the ball. Give us the shot to make it or miss it. We'll take the lumps if we miss it, but we want the chance to get the glory.

I don't even think about the money when I consider roles, I turn it over to my agency. Money will come. I respect it but I don't thirst for it. I wish Americans thought more like Europeans when it comes to money and work. They take time off, they do what they love. We think work is the most valued commodity. Really the most valued commodity is time.

I want to make sure that what I do has specific purpose and is not just throwing a dart at something to keep busy.

When the sun is shining, make hay, because it would be sunset on my career at some point, and when it is, I want to be exhausted.

Had "Malcolm in the Middle" been picked up I would not have been available for the pilot of "Breaking Bad." And right now someone else would be sitting in this chair talking to you. Not me.

Good storytelling doesn't have to be in the form of the classics. It doesn't have to be revered by everybody. In fact, to me, the best storytelling is not universally loved by every single person. I think you can water down the ethicacy of the work, itself.

I didn't feel entitled to become a star. I didn't expect it.

If you work hard, you have a better chance of producing something that you're proud of. If you don't, you won't. It's really simple.

Being from a divorced family almost felt like a scarlet letter at times. And I denied it for a long time.

It is my biggest fear, something happening to a child, your child, is unfathomable.

My dear friend Aaron Paul. I love you so much.

I have often walked down this street before but the pavement never held my star before... all at once I'm three stories high, knowing I'm on the street where it lives.

It's a familiar story now: a meek and depressed high school chemistry teacher with terminal cancer cooks up a scheme to make and market a superior grade of methamphetamine to provide a nest egg for his family after he's gone. But over the course of five seasons Walter White goes from milquetoast to murderous in order to survive.

Actors, writers, directors - that triumvirate of creativity - we have to rely and trust each other to be able to get to the final product.

I've got a whole mantel just waiting for those awards to come, a whole big mantel. There's just so much available space. I've got the light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, all ready to shine on them. I dust it off every day.

When everyone has high expectation for you, it can attack your insecurities.

I realized, "Oh my god, this is an enormous play. And it's almost all me. Big. big chunks of speeches, speeches, speeches." And I started to panic.

To me, character in a person is judged by the decisions that are made under pressure.

Pot always just made me sleepy.

There's boldness in being assertive; there's strength and confidence.

The more you humanize superhero characters, the more they're relatable. The more they have a vulnerable point, whether it's emotionally or their superpower, or whatever, we relate the superpower or the loss of a superpower to their emotions. It's just fun to walk through that.

The things you want professionally are opportunities. And through my good fortune that's what's happened. Opportunity has come to me.

[My father] had a massive middle-age breakdown. And left the family. And then it just completely fell apart. And my mother was heartbroken, just completely devastated. To make ends meet we started selling off all our possessions.

I do force myself to sleep with myself to get the job. But that's always a disappointment.

There is a peak and valley to careers and that includes fame. If you are lucky to ride this wave of fame to a plateau - it won't last there. I guess it is just a blue-collar work ethic that I was raised with.

It doesn't matter if you're good. If you're just good, you won't succeed. If you have patience and persistence and talent and that's it, you will not have a successful career as an actor. The elusive thing you need is luck.

I look like everyone else.

Actors are inherently self-centered. We're trained to focus on who I am. What do I want? Who is in my way? How do I get this? That's how we're trained. Unfortunately, that sometimes spills over into real life. But it's all very subjective. You just try to portray someone beyond the surface, the different layers.

The turmoil that my dad went through, and then by extension, the kids went though, was profound and disastrous for the marriage, for the family.

It's in our nature to be intrigued. We're putting the bread crumb not in your mouth but close to your mouth. You reach a little bit, and that's why it works.

Gay and lesbian couples should have the right to experience the joys of marriage and family.

I think it's not a question of why, more a question of why not.