A Quote by Edward James Olmos

Had I done the movies that were offered to me in my prime, at the height of my career, I would have been alongside the likes of Denzel Washington. But, I chose not to do those movies.
Listen, I think movies serve many different purposes, from those movies that are frivolous and just an entertainment, to movies that just go to exploring the complexities of the human soul. Everything is valid if it's done with honesty and dignity, and I actually do both of those types of movies in my career.
Denzel Washington has a great sense of humor. He did all those 'Nutty Professor' movies.
If I had done some of the movies that I was offered as an actor - and very good movies, by the way, and some of them big moneymakers - I don't know that I ever would have taken what was the concentration or the time to do the movies that I produced. 'Reds' is a good example, but 'Shampoo' is also an example, and so was 'Heaven Can Wait.'
I was offered 'Pretty Woman.' I was offered 'Big' and 'Dead Poets Society.' But what was important to me in those years was to make movies, to make these Albert Brooks movies.
I did two movies that were arthouse movies; they were critically successful but made no money at all... but after making those movies, I thought, 'I wouldn't watch my own movies when I was 16, and my buddies where I came from wouldn't watch my movies, because they were boring.'
I like that part of the culture of 'MST3K' is this constant dialog on what movies could be done and what movies should be done. I've seen plenty of bad movies and walked out afterward thinking 'That would have been perfect for 'MST3K.''
I turned down 'Harry Potter' and 'Spider-Man,' two movies that I knew would be phenomenally successful, because I had already made movies like that before and they offered no challenge to me. I don't need my ego to be reminded.
Danny Boyle has been a huge, has had a huge effect on me. His movies, early movies like Trainspotting and those movies. So I've always loved the energies of those movies. But also, that they are very focused on the characters. Cause it's not only gimmickery, it's not only about visuals. You feel a real need, a love for the main characters. So that's what I've always loved about watching movies myself.
The earliest movies that I loved were French movies and Italian movies. I grew up watching those kind of movies and often find the truest looks at human nature - you can find them in another country's movies.
The earliest movies that I loved were French movies and Italian movies. I grew up watching those kind of movies and often find the truest looks at human nature - you can find them in another countrys movies.
Richard Donner made great movies. Seminal movies. The Academy, though, and we have to be careful here, should recognize popular films. Popular films are what make it all work. There was a time when popular movies were commercial movies, and they were good movies, and they had to be good movies. There was no segregation between good independent films and popular movies.
I'm very lucky that I have this other career that runs alongside my comic career, which is a film career, and I've been given this really lovely setup where they seem to make the movies very quickly as well.
I was a teenager in the '80s - and maybe I'm wrong about this - but it seemed like a bad era for movies that were scary. It was really the height of movies that were disgusting.
Lord of the Rings was my first experience making movies and at the time, I had no ideas how movies were done. I thought that's the way they're done, so in a way, I had nothing to compare it to.
Early on in my career, when I had basically been a sitcom actor for all of these years, and I made my first movies, and they were comedies, and they were successes, it was very important for me to stretch, and 'Parenthood' was one of those films. Even though it was a comedy, there was a great deal of authentic drama in the piece as well.
I wanted to do serious movies. I had a certain idea of what good acting was. That's since changed, and I love doing comedies now. I don't like a lot of those movies now, but I thought those were movies that I could do real, serious performances in.
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