Top 28 Quotes & Sayings by Wes Studi

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American actor Wes Studi.

Last updated on September 17, 2024.

Wesley Studi is a Native American actor and film producer. He has garnered critical acclaim and awards throughout his career, particularly for his portrayal of Native Americans in film. He has appeared in Academy Award-winning films, such as Dances with Wolves (1990) and The Last of the Mohicans (1992), and in the Academy Award-nominated films Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) and The New World (2005). He is also known for portraying Sagat in Street Fighter (1994). Other films he has appeared in are Hostiles, Heat, Mystery Men, Avatar, A Million Ways to Die in the West, and the television series Penny Dreadful. In 2019, he received an Academy Honorary Award, becoming the first Native American and the second Indigenous person from North America to be honored by the Academy.

American - Actor | Born: December 17, 1947

Source: Wikipedia

I feel very fortunate that I was able to be cast in roles that showed the humanity, if you will, of usually stereotypical Indian characters that made up a lot of film, like the Pawnee in 'Dances with Wolves.'

Wes Studi

Irony is one of my favorite aspects of life.

Wes Studi

People talk about gangs as if they're something new. But it really isn't that way. The Democratic Party is a gang. The Republican Party is a gang. They're just not in the streets anymore.

Wes Studi

Having watched 'The Lone Ranger,' I asked my dad, 'You think we can be on TV like that guy?' He said, 'Probably not. You have to be 6 feet and blond to work in TV and movies.' I said, 'But what about that guy? Jay Silverheels?'

Wes Studi

I'm proud to have served there for 12 months with Alpha Company of the 39th Infantry.

Wes Studi

I myself, as an American Indian, feel like a failure in a way. I have not been able to do anything about the fact that these large corporations are taking so much natural gas and oil out of the soil. It seems like we're always involved in fighting something. It's tiresome.

Wes Studi

We, as Indian tribes, should be able to prosecute non-Indians on tribal lands. But on Indian land, we have no ability to prosecute anyone but another Indian. American Indians having status as a foreign nation is good for us, but it's not good in some ways if we don't have the jurisdictional power that the federal government claims.

Wes Studi

When I saw the 'Geronimo' script and was offered the part, it was overwhelming in that it brought back all of those feelings - made me feel what it's like to be in those shoes, the same shoes Geronimo himself might have been in.

Wes Studi

I think that's every actor's dream, actually: to play lead parts.

Wes Studi

It's a dangerous thing to build pipelines underground.

Wes Studi

At times, you're welcome, depending on what's being cast. 'Dances with Wolves' - they wanted authentic-looking Indians in the film, and so they got it. The same was true with 'The Last of the Mohicans' and 'Geronimo.'

Wes Studi

The western has always been, for me, the bread and butter. It's the easiest place for an identifiable Native American to be able to work. But I do yearn to be known as an actor rather than a 'Native American actor.'

Wes Studi

At times, I'm thinking negatively, thinking that we don't learn from our mistakes, but then I get more positive-minded. I do believe in the good of humanity.

Wes Studi

I like to be able to raise people's consciousness, yes. And to remind that those of us involved in the receiving end of the oppression, we have a duty.

Wes Studi

I can be a teddy bear, but more people tend to see me as the other side of the coin, and that has to do with casting, more Iago than Hamlet. But I don't play villains; I play people doing the right thing for the circumstances and time.

Wes Studi

I came from a family that was pretty insularly Cherokee. We kept to ourselves - the white people were there, and we were here, and it was practically a segregated kind of thing.

Wes Studi

An old-codger comedy - that's what I want to do.

Wes Studi

We were created to take care of, steward the land. That is mankind's purpose on earth, to steward and take care of the land as it feeds off of it.

Wes Studi

In the '70s, with movies like 'Little Big Man,' westerns began to have a little different flavor, and I think casting people and filmmakers began to realize, 'Hey, maybe we can get a little more authentic in terms of who we cast here.' That kind of opened up the gates.

Wes Studi

We have a responsibility to Mother Earth to protect it as much as possible.

Wes Studi

I tried bull-riding... I wasn't good at all: I don't think I ever got eight seconds anywhere. But then, after that, I discovered acting through community theater.

Wes Studi

National sovereignty can only be achieved after self-sovereignty.

Wes Studi

As a veteran, I am always appreciative when filmmakers bring to the screen stories of those who have served.

Wes Studi

One of the things I learned early on was the system of believing: you have to believe in what you say. The camera is the arbiter of truth; it's the all-seeing eye that can pick out discrepancies. You can't lie to the camera. You must believe in what you're saying, or the audience won't believe you.

Wes Studi

I think that the idea of sharing is something that has been lost in our social conscience, and we need to re-think that. We need to learn a new way.

Wes Studi

'Dances with Wolves' really started the movement, using subtitles for Lakota Sioux and showing Indians as interesting, complex people - not just the enemy - and giving a lot of unknown Indian actors work.

Wes Studi

I'm Cherokee, and there were times when social expansion was something that is needed by a cultural group or a national group.

Wes Studi

I am not a representative of anything. I have my opinions.

Wes Studi