Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American actor Henry Thomas.
Last updated on November 5, 2024.
Henry Jackson Thomas Jr. is an American actor. He began his career as a child actor and had a lead role in the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), for which he won a Young Artist Award and received Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Award, and Saturn Award nominations. Thomas also had roles in films like Cloak & Dagger (1984), Fire in the Sky (1993), Legends of the Fall (1994), Suicide Kings (1997), All the Pretty Horses (2000), Gangs of New York (2002), 11:14 (2003), and Dear John (2010). Thomas was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for his role in the television film Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1997).
The hardest thing about being a kid actor is just kind of separating 'this is my professional life' and 'this is my kid life.' That was always the hard part for me.
It was like that for the first six months after 'E.T.' was in cinemas. I'd go out and get mobbed. I was a shy kid, and being approached by adults all the time just freaked me out.
I don't know if I was so much of an outsider until after I started doing films. That put me on the outside. I grew up in Texas, and I wasn't the child of industry parents, and I didn't have a lot of friends in the industry or anything like that.
I have horses, I drive a truck, and I wear cowboy boots. First I'm a Texan.
My dad's family comes from the North, and my mother's family comes from somewhere around Carmarthenshire.
I think it's great when girls are artistic.
Whenever I have an opportunity, I catch a train and go to Wales and hire a car and drive around.
I got so tired of everybody talking about 'Stranger Things,' I think I developed a mental block against watching it.
I was highly sensitive and still am, but as a kid I could tap into my emotional state rather easily.
Carloads of tourists would photograph the family mailbox, and there was weird mail, death threats.
I understood why films were made, and if they made a lot of money, they were successful. All of these things I knew. As a ten-year-old boy, I didn't really think a lot about finances or celebrity. I always viewed films as kind of what I imagined a summer camp to be like.
My son, who is 7, he passed a car in a parking lot that was probably a 1998 model, and he said, 'Wow, Dad, look at that old car.' I was looking around for an old car, and I realized that my old car maybe stops at 1965.
The idea of a film staying in theaters for a year is something of a fantasy today.
I can't stay in L.A. too long or it starts to grow on me in a bad way.
Many times you walk into a room and people have already made up their minds. But it's always good to have something great associated with you.
Mike Flanagan wants to work with me again, and I would love to work with him again.
If I can generate enough income, I'd like to get a castle, a historic castle that I can restore.
I would inevitably get the girls who were interested in me because I was the guy from E.T. It was kind of tough. I can't deny ever capitalizing upon it but on the whole in my teens I was pretty virtuous.
I probably complicate things unnecessarily now just to give the illusion of professionalism.
Seeing a time period captured in film, you know, it does make you feel nostalgic.
It's really important to go back to where you come from.
Of course there have been times I regretted being the kid in 'E.T.' My world went completely crazy. I was that stupid kind of famous, where you can't go anywhere.
The one thing I've always done is to try not to overcomplicate anything.
Even if I had a tuxedo I wouldn't wear it to school.
I don't know if there aren't any films like 'E.T.' anymore. I just feel that the industry has changed so much. There are so many outlets now.
I figured out that I could think of my childhood dog that had died, and I could bring myself to tears. So I used that poor dead dog for several years until it just didn't work anymore, and I had to find something else.
It's harder to laugh than to cry.
I've got a lot of crazy plans.
I remember, when I was a kid in the '70s and '80s, the '50s were really cool. And then the '60s were really cool. And then the '70s.
I was getting a lot of hassles from the public. Everybody recognized me.
I grew up in a rural area, I was from kind of a poor family and my parents weren't showbiz people. But going back was strange, and perhaps stranger for the other students.