A Quote by John Dykstra

It's an embarrassment of riches because you have directors who don't better. You end up with so much stuff going on the screen that you don't know where to look, and that's what I consider self-indulgent.
So, when directors come up to me and ask if they should just narrate my role, I would say no and insist on knowing the whole story. It would give me a better idea of what I'm going to be a part of because when I look back at my career later on in life, nobody is going to remember my screen time.
I'll smoke anything. I won't spend a lot of money on cigars, because I consider that too self indulgent. $3, max, except for special occasions. And yes, I do know the difference.
Videos are tricky because stuff sounds amazing on paper and it seems like it's going to be this mystical experience and you're going to look back and go, "Wow, that was magic." But more times than not, it doesn't end up that way, so I never know what I'm going to get.
I have a horror of being self-indulgent and wasting time, and there is that risk in doing this kind of work. Are you totally deluded in sitting down at a desk every day and trying to write something? Is it self-indulgent, or might it possibly lead to something worthwhile? At a certain point I decided to keep on because I felt like the work was getting better, and I was taking great pleasure in that.
I know how much embarrassment hurts, and I love it as a theme because you can keep digging a hole. It's just an endless well, embarrassment.
Directors don't get to see other directors at work - they're the only one on the set. I've met directors who've asked me what another filmmaker is like. So, there's probably nobody better placed to make all the comparisons and to pick up stuff than an actor.
The actor has the advantage - or the liability - of knowing, "It's going to be my face up there on the frickin' screen, so I better keep my wits about me. Nobody's going to care that I was bad because I was not happy. They're only going to know I'm bad."
I bristle at the implication that only with the help of a Big Six editor does a novel lose its self-indulgent aspects. Before the advent of self-publishing, there were plenty of self-indulgent novels on the shelves.
"Look into thy heart and write!" is good advice, but not if interpreted to mean, "Look nowhere else!" The poet should know his world and, so far as his art is concerned, any kind of battering from his world is better than his own self-indulgent brooding.
I don't know if it's possible for anyone to really have that level of a voice anymore because our media is so diluted and parsed out. You know people kind of go for the news and information that they want as opposed to picking up a paper and seeing what catches their eye. It's a very stark difference and there is a few stories that end up going wide and everybody hears about them, but they're usually salacious celebrity stuff that is not about substance or it's the latest disaster and it's kind of covered in a way that is just trying to get eyeballs on the screen.
Most of my work is okay to look at on a TV screen or a flat screen, but this is actually much better in a theatre.
I think writing is a part-time career, because otherwise you get a little stale, maybe even self-indulgent, when you have to fill the hours with sentences. I don't think, if I wrote 12 hours a day, my work would be much better.
I'm always in awe of directors because they're just holding so much stuff in the air. They've got so many decisions that they need to be making and they have to have the complete overall look of what the piece of artwork is.
If a musician is making a mediocre, self-indulgent body of work, they have to know that, for the most part, people aren't going to be interested.
Do you know, I'm not as much of a moviegoer as I should be, and I do end up - because I'm travelling so much - I end up seeing movies on aeroplanes, which is the worst possible way to see a movie!
Women are brought up to believe you are going to be the better parent and you know what's best. I don't think that's necessarily true. As much as we have to ask men to step it up, we have to take a look at ourselves and be willing to give up some of that parental power.
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