A Quote by John Malkovich

You can't take a play someone has directed and do whatever you want with it. — © John Malkovich
You can't take a play someone has directed and do whatever you want with it.
I want to keep doing interesting work with interesting people in whatever form that may take, but I want to play the big parts of classical theatre; I want to go on stage and play great Shakespearean roles and, at the same time, do amazing, challenging indie films and comedy, and I want to do it all. I am greedy.
I can play whatever I want and play whatever the fans want to hear. I don't have to be like a salesperson up there talking about my CD through the whole show.
I'm an actor. I'm hired to play whatever it is they want me to play - if I'm lucky enough to be cast for the part - which seems to take a lot of luck these days.
Our idea of fun wasn't going to Disney World. It was, you want to play basketball, go outside, and make a goal. You want to play baseball? Take the old broom, take the handle off, take a tennis ball that we found somewhere, and go play baseball. We were forced to create things.
When you're a VJ, you can say whatever you want, dress whatever way you want to. You play your own character.
Films, fiction, can encompass a whole global vision on a particular subject with any story, whatever it is. You can play the story in whatever country with whatever language in whatever style you want to tell the story in.
You don't have to be the biggest, tallest, strongest guy to do whatever you want to do. You can do anything. There's tall doctors, short doctors. It doesn't matter. You don't have to be the tallest guy to play the sport of basketball, football or whatever you want to play.
I'm hungry for a cold and mean character. I'd love it if someone thought I could play gritty. I want to play a baddie - someone really scary.
I'm hungry for a cold and mean character - I'd love it if someone thought I could play gritty. I want to play a baddie, someone really scary.
I've fully accepted the fact that if I'm going to do a career like this, I have to be willing to take criticism, because it's a part of the job, you know? Any Instagram thing I post, someone's going to say something. I know that. Anything on Twitter, someone's going to judge whatever I do, whatever I say, whatever I look like. I understand that.
I've always done method acting. I'm a method actor, and I've done that for years. I never did acting and decided to take it seriously because all the parts people want me to do were playing the pretty role. If I want to play someone pretty, I'll play myself.
Work with good directors. Without them your play is doomed. At the time of my first play, I thought a good director was someone who liked my play. I was rudely awakened from that fantasy when he directed it as if he loathed it. . . . Work with good actors. A good actor hears the way you (and no one else) write. A good actor makes rewrites easy. A good actor tells you things about your play you didn't know.
When you take a stand out of deep conviction, people know. They may not even agree, but they ask, 'Do I want someone who is willing to take a hard stand and someone I can trust to do that when the chips are down?' They want that.
You can be as good as you want but if someone likes a different player for whatever reason you have to respect that and hope eventually you get the chance and then take it and stay there.
Whatever you want, at any moment, someone else is getting it. Whatever you have, someone else is longing for.
It was so satisfying for me - a great reward, just to see it done well. And it was beautifully directed by my daughter Susan Riskin. Imagine, a play about my mother directed by my daughter?!
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