A Quote by Dustin Hoffman
In terms of the stars, the only ones I cast were Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins. I was in Los Angeles working and a lot of this took place on the telephone. I'd met Maggie [Smith] once and I'd come back-stage, which I'm usually loathe to do because as an actor you don't want people coming back because you want to get home [laughs].
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When I began working in Yahoo, my family moved with me. Despite our efforts, our kids wanted to study in Los Angeles, and I was forced to see my family and friends only on weekends. In the beginning I even enjoyed it, but knew that at some stage I'd want to go back home.
I moved to Los Angeles in January 2004 because a buddy of mine, who I met at a friend's wedding, said he could get me a room in his apartment for $500 a month. I took it thinking that it would probably only be about six months before I moved back to Chicago, but I fell in love with it.
First of all, it was wonderful to have a home. Consistent work when you're a journeyman actor, when you're a character actor, is really hard to come by. When you can get it, you have to cherish every moment of it - cherish the crew, cherish the cast, cherish the stage, cherish everything. Because when it's over, it's really hard to get back.
But a lot of my training can be done in Aston - a lot of the hard work, so to speak. But a new atmosphere, a new place, and it's good for me because I didn't want to get stuck in one spot, so coming home is good, back and forth, you know, where my roots are.
My parents were ambitious people, my father especially, whose entire life was devoted to rising above, but his ambitions were defeated long before death finished them off, and so when he died, he came back to where he started, but he didn't come back home, because there was no home to come back to.
I grew up on theater, and honestly, I'm trying to figure out a way with a family and kids and living in Los Angeles to get back to the stage because it is my first love.
I just want to continue to grow, as an actor, and dig. Hopefully, one day, I'll lose myself in a role. My only worry about that is that I just want to be able to come back home. I don't want to get lost forever. That scares me.
I feel the acting conservatory taught me how to be a working actor in the 1700s. We learned stuff like 'to the back of the auditorium, to the back of the auditorium' and the liquid "u." 'The payment is duuue on Tuuuesday.' I also learned how to fence. If anything, when I moved to Los Angeles, I didn't fit in, in any way. I had to do comedy, because I was talking so pretentiously.
If you want to be an actor because you want to be recognized on the street and have people ask you for autographs, look for another career. If you want to be an actor because you love being on stage and want to capture a person's heart, go for it.
The great thing I think when you do independents is that people are really there for the same reason. They're not there because they got a lot of money and they want to just go home and get it over with. They're there because they believe in the script or the director or the cast or whatever it is, and they want to make it work.
So, most of it was done over the phone. But one of the first things I did as a director, because it's one of the first things you should do, even though most don't, is to ask good actors who they think is right for the part. They know better than anybody. But without missing a beat Maggie said Pauline Collins. I didn't know Pauline because I hadn't seen Shirley Valentine, but then I saw this thing that she did with Woody Allen [You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger], in which she was wonderful as a psychic, and I said to her on the phone: "The dialogue seemed improvised."
I went to Los Angeles, because I have a manager, and - I can't remember when, but we met in London maybe six months or a year beforehand, and he said, "Listen, if you really want to get a job out of L.A., you really need to come." And I was like, "Well, can't I send a tape or something?" And he was like, "No, no, you need to come."
Los Angeles was a place after my own heart. The people were hospitable. The country had the same attraction for me that it had for the Indians who originally chose this spot as their place to live. The Los Angeles River was a beautiful, limpid little stream, with willows on its banks. It was so attractive to me that it at once became something about which my whole scheme of life was woven, I loved it so much.
I always love going back to Los Angeles, because it was my home for 24 years, and I have many friends there.
The majority of people who come to America come for a better life, just like the Italians, the Jews, the Irish, and the Polish did in generations before. A lot of the Irish came here back in the turn of the 19th to the 20th century because there were no opportunities and no options at home for them. There were no jobs and there was extreme poverty. They came here to be able to send money back home.
You're sitting at home in a cast or a boot and it's tough, because all you've got is negative thoughts going through your head. Once you start to move and run a little bit, the confidence comes back, and then it's just a matter of time before you come back to be yourself.
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