A Quote by Claire Denis

Sometimes I feel like John Wayne. — © Claire Denis
Sometimes I feel like John Wayne.
I never have really become accustomed to the 'John.' Nobody ever really calls me John... I've always been Duke or Marion or John Wayne. It's a name that goes well together, and it's like one word - John Wayne.
You're not going to be able to look like anyone else, no matter how hard you try, unless you're a mimic, then you're not acting, you're just mimicking. You can't go on being John Wayne, that's John Wayne. So you're not going to steal from John Wayne. I'm not going to steal from John Wayne and you're not going to come back and say 'Didn't you get that from the circus?' You know. But he is one of those people who instructs me, whom I look up to - whom I think is one of the masters of his craft that I am so enamoured of.
If I was white I would have been like John Wayne... I feel like a tragic hero in a Shakespeare play
John Wayne is not just an actor, and a very fine actor - John Wayne is the United States of America.
John loved celebrity. We attended an American Film Institute dinner honoring James Cagney, and the room was filled with famous actors like Mae West, Kirk Douglas, John Wayne and Steve McQueen. John was like a kid in a candy store.
In a black-and-white world, back in the '50s, were voices from another era. All actors used to sound different. Robert Mitchum sounded different from John Wayne, and John Wayne sounded different from Clark Gable. They were like men's voices, but they weren't Everyman, it was them.
We [with John Logan] started talking about The Searchers, and then he went on to tell me a story about when he first met John Wayne, and he said, "Hey, you be me and I'll be Wayne," and I said, "No, let me be Wayne!" Anyway, it was a very pleasant conversation, it was clear to him that I was a big movie fan, and by the time I got home, there was a phone call, asking if I'd mind doing one scene in the movie [The Aviator].
When did Jimmy Stewart not play Jimmy Stewart? When did John Wayne not play John Wayne? But that's what we like about them. When you talk about acting, you really have to respond to somebody's personality.
I definitely remember doing 'The Alamo' with John Wayne and Lawrence Harvey and Linda Cristal. We'd work six days a week, and then John Wayne would invite us down to a little place in Texas called Del Rio, and we would break bread and have some wine and tell stories.
After my father had seen me in five or six things, he said, Son, your mother and I really enjoyed your recent film, and I must say that you're a lot like John Wayne. And I said, How so? And he said, Well, you're exactly the same in all your roles. Now, as a modern American actor, that's not what you want to hear. But for a guy who watched John Wayne movies and grew up in Iowa, it's a sterling compliment.
Robert Mitchum sounded different from John Wayne, and John Wayne sounded different from Clark Gable.
The more film I watch, the more John Ford looks like a giant. His politics aren't so good, and you have to learn to accept John Wayne as an actor, but he's a poet in black and white.
Two of the great leaders of the past - Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass - had White fathers - who deserted them. Now Margo Jefferson, who is hard on me and the fellas, wrote in the Times that she has nocturnal, erotic fantasies about John Wayne. What's up with these feminists? Do you see these double standards these feminists have? They dream about John Wayne, but they're hard on us [Black men].
I feel bad [about Lil Wayne going to jail], because I don't think anything like this has happened in music since Elvis got drafted into the Army. Let's just keep it real - Lil Wayne is not just the biggest rapper, Lil Wayne is the biggest pop star right now. Maybe Susan Boyle is on his level. But when you talk about music, nice times out of ten, Lil Wayne's name is gonna come into the conversation.
Sometimes I feel like both; sometimes I feel like neither. Sometimes I feel like something else completely. Gender-wise, I identify as a non-binary person, which means not male, not female.
Well, what I want them to know is, just like John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa, that's the kind of spirit that I have, too.
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