I think it's an actor's job, if you can, to keep working and to keep using that muscle. First of all, you've got to pay the bills, but it also helps you develop.
— Adam West
Batman had a certain speech pattern that I established because he was always Sherlock Holmes-ian. He was Basil Rathbone. In other words, he was always musing about something.
I've hung on for a long time in this business and had some success, and I think it's keeping an open mind and being curious and having a sense of humor about oneself that's important.
I was victimized by the old Hollywood typecasting thing. I had to really fight to get out of it, so I was uncomfortable with it.
In the late '60s, there were the the three B's: The Beatles, Batman, and Bond.
I'm like Madonna: I keep reinventing myself.
When you wear a mask and create a character, nothing will pigeonhole you faster.
To play the leading man in a 'Three Stooges' movie, you've got to think funny. Thank God I think funny.
In a very real sense, I represent pop culture in an iconic way. It's been very good to me, so anything I can do to help the fans to tumble along - it's good.
Burgess Meredith taught me a lot about wine.
I have no patience with dinosaurs.
My paintings capture the humor, zaniness, and depth of the Batman villains as well as the Freudian motivations of Batman as an all-too-human, venerable, and funny vigilante superhero.
Isn't it fun to be nuts? Isn't it fun to be crazy?
I have become convinced that everything that is classy doesn't go away.
Maybe we could find some way to send barges of trash to the sun and incinerate it all. Hey, it's an idea. It's an idea!
I just go my own way. If my agent calls and presents me with something, and I find it refreshing or illuminating, yeah, I'll do it.
I was a maverick. I went to five different colleges looking for I don't know quite what.
I'm not a vindictive kind of guy.
You've got a guy in a cape and tights running around fighting crime 24-7; this is not normal. But it worked because the kids loved it and the adults laughed with it.
I don't want to be Batman. Let Val Kilmer do it. I just want to be Uncle Batman. I have this whole 'warm relationship' plot in my mind. In the final scenes, the new Batmobile breaks down, the new Batman's stranded on the side of the road. We grab our old Batmobile, pick him up and drive away.
I come to Comic-Con in San Diego because this is where those fans are - those to whom I owe the longevity of my career.
I would hate to be a bitter, aging actor.
If you're a plumber, you plumb. I'm an actor. I act.
I don't paint butter dishes, doilies, or hummingbirds in my garden. It's more raw, I suppose. But it always creates a reaction.
I love to go home and do the chores and read.
I like to make people laugh and have fun.
There was a time when 'Batman' really kept me from getting some pretty good roles, and I was asked to do what I figured were important features. However, Batman was there, and very few people would take a chance on me walking onto the screen. And they'd be taking people away from the story.
It's part of my character not to take myself too seriously. That's one of the reasons I've been able to survive.
'Batman' was a colorful and wild ride.
People love Batman, and I would be stupid, I would be a fool if I didn't love Batman.
I've been almost everywhere. But I've never been to the steppes of Latvia. It's something I've always wanted to do.
Anything that triggers good memories can't be all bad.
Anything with 'Family Guy' is great.
I'm interested in film - any aspect - acting, directing, writing.
If you paint a picture and I paint a picture, we each want to do it our own way. And we'll stand or fall on whatever we did.
I've always shied away from 'Where are they now?' shows, because I've been lucky enough to keep working, and people know where I am.
Crummy pictures, live appearances, circuses, avant garde theater, dinner theater. I've done it all. I've been shot out of cannons. I know what the people want. I'm out there with the people.
When 'Family Guy' came along, it was like a gift, and it expanded my fan base.
I get called 'Mayor West' a lot in airports. I've been very fortunate to have a fan base that keeps growing, and the work gets such a warm response and humor from people.
I've played dinner theaters. I'm a working stiff.
I've always been able to work. I think it's an actor's obligation to keep working if you can.
Any incarnation of 'Batman' I am delighted to do.
If you hang around long enough, they think you're good. It's either my tenacity or stupidity - I'm not sure which.
You can't play Batman in a serious, square-jawed, straight-ahead way without giving the audience the sense that there's something behind that mask waiting to get out, that he's a little crazed; he's strange.
Some nights, I wear my cape, and I go out on the pier. It is foggy... I look for... Riddler.
My art, like my acting, is a profound expression of poetic license.
I did a character called Captain Q for Nestle's Quik. Those commercials were kind of funny.
I grew up on a ranch in Walla Walla, Washington. Except for one lawyer, I don't remember anyone in my family being anything else but ranchers.
I'm a fan of anything that's good, especially when it's conscientiously good.
The wonderful thing with some of the things I've done - most of them, really - is to be trusted. To be able to do your thing, to work on it, hone it into my gem of creativity!
