Top 145 Quotes & Sayings by Jeffrey Tambor - Page 3

The Larry Sanders Show ?hanged my life. I am so thankful that - I mean, go figure. Most people are lucky to get one good series, but I got two ground-breakers. I just knew when I read that "Hey Now" script that something was afoot. Those were seven of the greatest years of my life. I learned so much, and it affirmed everything I thought comedy was. It was really a tremendous experience.

Mel Brooks and David Zucker - there are very few people who know silly, and they're usually hugely intelligent, because you have to be intelligent to get it. Like the Marx brothers. I love it.

I don't like show business. I don't like the business. I love acting. I love this. I love talking to people.

Certainly the principal has to be bald. Certainly the school counselor has to be bald. And the driver's ed teacher. And maybe the wood-shop teacher. Mine was.

I think when I was a younger actor, I did carry that stuff home. When I did ...And Justice For All, I was afraid to drop the character. But when you get older, you learn to go, "Okay, that's it. Let's go have dinner."

I like working on one - camera. This is not false modesty, but I don't think I'm very good at three - camera. And it's not that I'm nervous, but I just sort of feel like my collar is too small, or my clothes don't fit. I don't understand what that is. And I don't understand the format: There's an audience in front of you that you're playing to, but there are also these cameras.

All my roles are character roles. On the other hand, there are those people who have an inner...I think we all do the same thing. You can't get by on aura alone. That I know. Everyone has to dig in. Everyone has to do the same set of, "What is this about? What is this character doing?" Everybody from Spencer Tracy to Brad Pitt to Jeffrey Tambor.

Everyone has to do the same work as actors - I teach acting. But there are those people who come on, and there's just something about them in and above themselves that has to do with chemistry and electricity - this aura about them. And that's unmistakable. Do I have that? Yeah, I think I have that.

You keep your head down and you work and work, and all of a sudden you pick your head up and people are receiving it the same way we're sending it. They're thinking the same things that I'm thinking about the show.

David Zucker was great! Those guys are funny. I mean, they are funny. There's a wonderful thing about doing that kind of work like Superhero Movie: You have to be real, but you also have to get the laugh. There you are, your director and the producers are right there at the monitors, and you either get the laugh or you don't. And so you just do it until you get the laugh.

I think your resources are feeling. Your resources are depth. Your resources are learning. Your resources are touching and feeling. And for me, sobriety helps and aids all of that.

That's an actor's life. I thought Meet Joe Black was gonna be one of the big changes for me, and it was gonna be a runaway hit - and it wasn't. And with Mr. Mom, I said, "There's just no way." And it turned out to be a huge hit.

I love Brooke Shields. She's developed into a wonderful actress and a wonderful person. We were all babies then in Brenda Starr. That's why when people say, "What did you think of that film?" I can't do what people do and say, "I hated it." I can't speak ill of a film, because it's so hard to make a film. Everybody thinks we're sitting by a pool peeling grapes, and this is not the case. It's hard. It's hard to do this stuff - and getting harder!

With Hellboy I am doing a comic-book movie. That's what's so great about being an actor: You get to do Meet Joe Black, and you get to do Arrested Development, and then you get to do Hellboy and Eloise, and The Sponge Bob Square Pants Movie. It's great. You get to play the field.

That scene that I have with Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black is one of my favorite scenes that I've ever done. He's very modest. He's a real hardworking actor. I think he was going through something difficult at that time, and he never brought his personal stuff - not once! - on the set. He was a real pro. I remember doing that scene, and as I was acting, I thought, "I understand why this guy's a movie star." Because there was just something that he did when the cameras rolled. There was some kind of energy that was really magnificent, a real aura about him.

At the beginning of the Larry Sanders show, you know, we were grateful to get guests. At the end, it was as if we actually were The Tonight Show. People would come on, and it had the same sort of imprimatur as if we were on the air. I've been on a lot of talk shows during that time and since then, and people would come up in the dressing room or in the corridors and say, "You guys got it exactly right." Or they would say, "We have Larry Sanders moments every day."

I thought Pan's Labyrinth was one of the greatest films I've ever seen, just pure artistry. Guillermo Del Toro is just really something, this guy. And he's a real mensch: down-to-earth, funny, huggy, and terrific.

The most telling one was recently on a plane. This guy very dressed up and formal - the watch, the shoes, the cufflinks, the whole nine yards - he came at me, and I thought I was going to get nailed. But he literally came up to me and just gave me a hug and said, "Thank you for introducing me to a subject that I didn't know anything about." In those moments it always clicks for me what we're doing here.

I am not so concerned with how many Rotten Tomatoes we have - although the good reviews are to be wished for, of course - but I have my hands full in the daily housekeeping of doing Maura right and being truthful to this experience.

Garry Shandling in particular - really had the concept. He really knew it, and it was done so lovingly. He would go beyond the joke, and sort of go into the character. His "funny" was very different, and I really appreciated it.

My part had three lines. I said, You look wonderful, sir, three times. All my friends said, Do not take that role - and do not understudy. You'll regret it the rest of your life. I did both of those things, and I've never regretted it once.

Guillermo del Toro. He's in his pure artist's stroke. He's just hitting it out of the park. I would go anywhere to work with him. He's a real artist.

Saturday The 14th movie is a cult classic. And you know another one like that that I did, is Three O'Clock High. People come up to me about those two all the time. Film schools even study Three O'Clock High. Shot for shot, it's a textbook.

I loved Hank Kingsley. He was very real to me. There was just something about that character. I really believed him. I didn't think he was a buffoon. I understood the inner workings of him, so I sort of felt sorry for him, the poor guy. He was very important to me.

I remember I was standing next to Timothy Dalton in Brenda Starr, and he turned to me and said,"Oh, I think I've just been tagged to play James Bond." I'll never forget that. I went, "Oh! Okay. Well, good for you."