Top 121 Quotes & Sayings by William H. Macy - Page 2

If I had my choice, I would do the same little independent films, but they would have $100 million budgets, so I could get paid a fortune and hang out in a huge trailer.

I've written a lot of scripts that someone else directed, and it's absolutely vital that, if I'm gonna act in it, then I have to take off the writer hat and let the director direct.

The character and the actor in a long-running series slowly become one. I think there must be funny stories about actors who, in the pilot for a TV series, did some weird thing with their eyes, or some speech impediment or something, and the next thing you know, it's eight years later, and they're still doing that freaking gag.

One of the things I did early on in film was over-enunciate and talk too loud.

Actors are embracing a new aesthetic, which is leaning more toward truthful and simple and direct, as opposed to what we would normally call sitcom acting.

Anyway, I try to be a good guy. I try to tell the truth, but I'm not religious.

I love making movies, I love the differentness of it, I love writing. But I've always liked television. I grew up on television.

It’s a shame...you just don’t see young people doing anything outside these days.

I have been working out for 30 years, staying in shape in the dream that someday I would get to play a sex scene. Finally I get one, and they cut it.

It was my first impulse, but I chose to play the priest as a true believer who was an absolute man of faith that absolutely supports the church.

The reason they came up with the ratings board is that there are a lot of movies out there, and parents need some guidance. Not only for the kids, but for adults, as well. If you don't like to see a certain kind of film, there should be some rating, so that you know what you're getting into. But the present system doesn't work.

What actors are good at doing is walking into a situation that should make you incredibly self-conscious and frightened and doing it anyway. That's the gig, pretending that you are comfortable.

I'm not religious. It's an issue, 'cause I've got two little kids, and I feel you can't grow up without knowledge of religion.

I feel like a lot of the young actors that are just coming up are really good. I think directors are directing better.

I feel very secure about the role of the actor in the future. They need us, because stories are about people.

The only reason an indie gets made is because someone has a burning passion to do it and won't take no for an answer, as opposed to a big film, which is like a train that starts rolling down the tracks and nothing can stop it.

As an actor, early on, you learn that the audience is never wrong. And if you think they are wrong, you need to find a different way to make a living. Collectively the audience is smarter than you will ever, ever be.

You'd much rather act with a pal, someone you know really well. That way, you can cut all the niceties and go right to insulting each other.

It's not good for people to have the safety net too low... People can take care of themselves better than we allow them to.

I'm getting bigger roles, and I'm on location more, and I have a wife and family. I'd rather work less, and I've started to implement that. It was either that or my wife would break my heart.

With an inexperienced director, a lot of times the days go on to 14, 15, 16 hours. It goes horrendously overtime. And because of the lack of money, they just keep you there, regardless of the hours.

I've discovered that I can't trust the ratings board at all, because they have - to my mind - a perverted point of view about what's appropriate for children. They think that if you see any part of a male or female anatomy, we have to protect children from it, which is not true, and they think almost any level of violence is okay for children, which is absolutely not true... They're really off the mark.

At the end of the day, what actors really want to do is act a lot and not wait around in the trailer.

Our glorification of violence is ripping society apart. I don't want my children exposed to it.

I've always felt it's the directors purview to say what; it's the actor's purview to say how. It's not good for an actor to have the big picture in mind - it bollocks you up. An actor's purview is the tiny little... We measure our performance in seconds.

What I've discovered is, really, acting is acting is acting. It's all the same. Seventy-five percent of the skills are the same in both media.

I do love comedy, but I'm not brave enough to tackle a script whose goal is to make you laugh. That's tough. The ones that can do it, I tip my hat off to them, but I don't have that kind of humor or mind.

I'm drawn to a lot of first-time directors. One of the great common denominators in these small independent films is that there's a person, or two people, who have an absolutely monomaniacal passion to get these films made. That's what makes them happen. Sometimes, it takes years and years to finally get it done, but by never backing down, by never giving up, they get these films to the screen by hook or by crook.

Many times, I like to read the script before I even know who they want me to play, so I can read it and really enjoy it as an audience member. I think that's given me the ability to ferret out the really special scripts from all the rest.

I think acting is getting better and better.

I love women. I always have. I'm not pretending that I understand them, but I just love women. I love being in their presence and I love everything about them.

Before I made it big I worked as a dishwasher, washing dishes in this place called Dishwasher House where people could just come in and do whatever they wanted to the dishes and we had to clean them with our hands till they bled. A lot of struggling actors worked there-Downey Jr., Joaquin Phoenix, Damon Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans-and we actually all kind of wish we still did.

Somebody's gotta stand up and say pubic hair is good, murder is bad. Sex is good, violence is bad.

A good director is very well prepared, and knows exactly how he's going to cut the film, so the shooting is as efficient as possible.

You can skim those stage directions and go right to the dialogue. You can almost read the movie in the same amount of time it will take you to see the movie.

When a director makes a mistake, people suffer. People suffer horribly sometimes.

Another mistake a director can make is not to be prepared, so you get there on the day to shoot the scene, and they don't know how it should be blocked, and they're not clear on how they want to do a scene.

Writers love to write those idiotic, long stage directions, and some of them worse than others. They have nothing to do with the movie. They're just jerking around.

The best thing for an actor to do is take your attention off of how you feel about it, and put it on striving to obtain a particular objective. The happy result is that it brings out all this unexpected stuff in yourself.

A good actor's director, first of all, is prepared, so there's not an exorbitant amount of wasted footage.

I've got two little girls, I'm not scared about sex. I'll teach them, it's not going to kill them. But what could kill them is violence. Guns, drinking and driving, these are the real dangers in our society.

I introduced myself to Scorsese and I said, "If you need someone to do craft services, I'm there."

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 loved Batman, don't get me wrong, but that kind of mindless violence is not good for young children.

Ultimately, a more experienced director realizes that you've got to stop sometime and just move on. They're braver about that.

Here are the good things about independent films: They do the more interesting, chancy scripts. They're run by love.

Women, in order to recharge their batteries, gather in groups. They can recharge their batteries with their sisters. I tend to recharge my batteries in solitude, therefore the motorcycle trips. I need to be alone. As a matter of fact, I have to be careful. I could turn into a hermit.

Perhaps there is such a thing as obscene sex, but I know that violence is always obscene. So I don't get it, that you can disembowel a woman but you can't see her tits. Who made that up? That's sick!

We, in America, are so screwed up when it comes to sex. That's all we can see.

There will always be people with disabilities. And by my estimation, the scorecard for the way we take care of those who need our help the most, those at the very bottom of that safety net, is pretty dismal. And that has to change.

The ratings system is so bogus and people know it. Fewer and fewer people care. The ratings board has sort of exposed itself. But my problem is, as a parent, there's this area of film that my daughters want to see. They're not my kind of films, I don't want to go see them, but I really want to know whether my daughters can see them or not. The morality of what the ratings board is doing now escapes me. I don't get it.

I am against censorship in any form. I think anybody should be able to make any movie he or she wants and let the public decide. If it's disgusting and they don't want to see it, they won't go. I believe in the audience.

I do want to do TV, but I'm looking to be a creator, writer, and producer, and perhaps I could be a recurring character. Do 10 shows a year, something like that.

Directing is a huge amount of work with very little payoff, and a quarter of the money, and nine times more time spent.

I don't watch rushes. My whole thing is to try to stay in the moment with the other actor, and to let it all hang. I'm not sure I'm right on that, though.

I don't know if it's fair to say that it's a bad time for movies. It seems to me that throughout the entire history of filmmaking, every year there have been about two really wonderful movies, about 10 others that are pretty good, and a whole pile of garbage.

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. It's not right. Someone's gotta say it. They said it. I applaud them.

There are statistics out that say 20 year olds, 18 years olds think about sex 90 percent of the time. They only don't think about sex when they're eating, and that's rare.

Making a mistake means overshooting a scene, shooting too many takes, for instance. Long after you've got it, you just keep shooting.

Sometimes, directors are afraid to stop shooting, because the second you stop and say, "We got it," and move on, you'll never get another chance. And they're terrified to get in the cutting room and not be happy. So they just keep shooting.