A Quote by John Gallagher, Jr.

There's a screen direction in the script for the pilot where it says, 'Jim Harper, mid-20s, enters,' and it said something to the effect of: 'He's confident without being cocky. He has no idea that he could be considered attractive, because he saw All The President's Men when he was thirteen and never looked up.' It was just a great little gem of a screen direction, and I felt immediately from just that, that I had a good idea of how to play this guy.
For me, it works best to plan just enough to come up with a good direction to head out in. Then I start down the path as soon as I can, without a very clear idea of what exactly I'm going to end up with. I try to leave a lot of time for flexibility and play and changing direction.
Being a naive 20-something I didn't think that I could just go to the screen cartoonist's union, that I was a member of, and scream bloody murder and they would have jumped all over this guy and said, "Oh, but yes he does get screen credit."
I've always said it's flattering to be desired, just as it's flattering that people accept the reality of the character you play. But it was always ridiculous to assume that because I could play a gigolo on screen I'd play anything like that role off screen.
The most exciting time is when I think of an idea and how I imagine I can make it. It would be wonderful if there was a projector inside my eye that and it could just put the idea on the screen for people to see.
I liked Bollywood a lot growing up; I just liked the idea of seeing people that looked like me on a big screen, that alone just does so much for confidence. I'm a super visual person, I need to see something before I do it.
The traditional view of purpose says it comes from on high, from God, from the Creator. Darwin's idea of natural selection makes people uncomfortable because it reverses the direction of tradition. Whereas people used to think of meaning coming from on high and being ordained from the top down, now we have Darwin saying, "No, all of this design can happen, all of this purpose can emerge from the bottom up without any direction at all."
Trust the Universe. Trust and believe and have faith. I truly had no idea how I was going to bring the knowledge of The Secret onto the movie screen. I just held to the outcome of the vision, I saw the outcome clearly in my mind, I felt it with all my might, and everything that we needed to create The Secret came to us.
I’m attracted to the idea of drowning. Or rather the idea of jumping off and being enveloped by something, not bad or good, just enveloping. When I was a kid, I had a moment when I got under the water, lying on the pool floor, and felt I could breathe. I’ve been trying to recreate that feeling ever since.
I just couldn't believe that it [Into the Forest script] had fallen into my lap, because I felt so incredibly connected to my character, and I understood her, and I really...I haven't had that feeling about a script since I had read Thirteen or The Wrestler when I was just like, "No one else can do this." I just feel so passionate about it.
I always felt something different when I saw Gary Oldman on screen. It just felt like he knew how to reach a deeper level of himself, which is something I keep striving to reach.
I've never understood the notion that actors and actresses should look great on-screen just because they're on-screen. That doesn't make sense to me.
I worked two days in Texas and two days in Hollywood on 'Bonnie and Clyde,' and that was it. I had no idea how it was going to turn out. And when I saw it, I was so upset, or fascinated, or something, by the sight of myself on the screen that I could hardly pay attention to the rest of the movie.
I think there's something so wonderful about being part of the process from the seed of the idea to seeing it come to life on a screen. And to have a hand in that creatively, not just showing up as an actor for hire.
Because it all derived from Superman. I mean, I love all the characters, but Superman is just this perfect human pop-culture distillation of a really basic idea. He's a good guy. He loves us. He will not stop in defending us. How beautiful is that? He's like a sci-fi Jesus. He'll never let you down. And only in fiction can that guy actually exist, because real guys will always let you down one way or another. We actually made up an idea that beautiful. That's just cool to me. We made a little paper universe where all of the above is true.
My grandmother had the most dramatic effect on my life because she set me in one direction, and I had to go back the other direction for my sanity, and for my ability to be a social human being.
Eventually, when I got the 'Meadowland' script, I saw something in it that made me think I could make something special out of it, something that could work with my style. Emotionally, I connected to it. I thought, 'If I feel this way just imagining it, maybe we can make that happen on screen and make people feel something when they watch it.'
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