Paul Newman
American actor and film director (1925–2008)
Add new record
- Who's to say who's an expert?
- So you wound up with Apollo. If he's sometimes hard to swallow. Use this.
- Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experiences.
- Acting isn't really a creative profession. It's an interpretative one.
- (Talking about Alfred Hitchcock): "I think Hitch and I could have really hit it off, but the script kept getting in the way".
- Once I started taking drama classes, I asked myself why I had ever wasted so much time on a football team.
- The characters I have the least in common with are the ones I have the greatest success with. The further a role is from my own experience, the more I try to deepen it.
- For those of you who like to scarf your popcorn in the sack, the good news is that Newman's Own contains an aphrodisiac.
- A man with no enemies is a man with no character.
- In the early days of films, the movie star in this country replaced royalty. They've been demoted since then but they're still treated as beings larger than life.
- I will continue to get behind the wheel of a racing car as long as I am able. But that could all end tomorrow...
- If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
- People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked.
- I don't think there's anything exceptional or noble in being philanthropic. It's the other attitude that confuses me.
- To be an actor, you have to be a child.
- Study your craft and know who you are and what's special about you. Find out what everyone does on a film set, ask questions and listen. Make sure you live life, which means don't do things where you court celebrity, and give something positive back to our society. - his advice to young actors just starting out
- It's all been a bad joke that just ran out of control. I got into food for fun but the business got a mind of its own. Now - my good Lord - look where it has gotten me. My products are on supermarket shelves, in cinemas, in the theater. And they say show business is odd.
- I think I get a very unfortunate view of the press. I think of what is written about me, about 5% of it is accurate. I'm not comfortable with them, they're not comfortable with me. I certainly am not comfortable with photographers. -1970's (Talking about his days as a member of the Actor's Studio) I remember someone who helped me a lot in my early days. We were just rehearsing a scene and I remember she stopped me with an absolute rifle shot of a clap and grabbed my shirt and said 'You are not thinking, you are just thinking you are thinking.' And if you watch actors, you can tell those who don't necessarily indicate in broad strokes what's going on, but you can really see in their eyes that they are going through a process."
- That I survived the first film I did (The Silver Chalice (1954)) was extraordinarily good fortune. I mean, I had dogs chasing me down the street. I was wearing this tiny little Greek cocktail dress - with *my* legs! Good Lord, it was really bad. In fact, it was the worst film made in the 1950s. My first review said that 'Mr. Newman delivers his lines with the emotional fervor of a Putnam stop conductor announcing local stop'.
- I can remember in my high-school days and I kept thinking to myself: "Now, why did those actors go out in public after a certain age?" I mean, why would they wanna blow this image they'd worked so hard and allow themselves to be photographed? They should have just stayed at home and stayed young and youthful. And now it's there for everybody to look at - all our words, stuttering, and bad posture. All those things that should never happen, really. Well, times change. Yeah, it ain't so bad!
- I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.
- I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.
- The star of oil and vinegar and the oil and vinegar of the stars.
- Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.