I was always explaining why my term papers were never on time. I think that's where I got my acting training!
— Greg Kinnear
I like the classics!
I can't not find humor in elements of most parts of life, but at the same time nothing ever seems perpetually funny to me.
I don't think there's any connection between my journalism career and my film career. They are two totally different mediums and very different skills.
I like complicated characters.
I really don't make a concerted effort to try to find a type of role.
We all have our own ideas of who we are that may or may not be justified, and you can really find out a heck of a lot more accurately from the people around an individual.
I don't consider a lot of actors that I really admire movie stars.
Good scripts and interesting stories are hard enough to find.
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with this idea of opening a restaurant back in Indiana on a little pond. The guests would order their dinner and then take a little boat out with a colored flag on the front of it. When the matching color of the flag on their boat went up on a flag pole, their dinner was ready!
I have always been interested in the concept of ruin.
In my sophomore year, a kid told me that the secret to getting women is to play really, really hard to get. I followed his advice, and I didn't have so much as a date that year.
Let's keep the chemists over here and the food over here, that's my feeling. What do I know? But that is a big aspect of fast food is their ability to artificially taint the colors and the smells and stuff to stimulate appetite.
Audiences don't ever disappoint me, in the sense that movies I feel really good about, they usually feel really good about too.
Sometimes I look back and think, 'Good. I'd love to go in and bang out a good episode of 'Talk Soup' today.'
I really don't make a concerted effort to try to find a type of role. Maybe I've just done enough of them now where people are like, 'Oh, it's the guy that's in a swirling vortex of despair, send it to Kinnear!' I don't really know, but it does seem to be a recurring theme.
Whenever Hollywood gets involved with real life events, certain liberties have to be taken.
I've never had a clear road map. When things come along, I benefit.
My grandfather had two boys, my uncle had three boys, my dad had me and my two brothers, each of my brothers have had two boys. Then something happened with the chromosomal experiment and suddenly I've got three girls.
We all have to lead double lives, not just celebrities. The face we put on publicly with our jobs and certain situations. I think that's part of the human condition.
I've never felt like my career has been on fire.
It's not easy to tell a story about writers and make that feel like a complete story and an interesting story.
There's something in human nature, the trying-to-get-on-with-it quality of people, the struggle to maintain or keep the show going can be exhausting.
I've always thought Mexico City was incredibly dynamic.
Talking about corporations - they're so big. There's not a person at a corporation.
Of course, actors look forward to the day when they can do a big courtroom scene.
You don't get to pick your partners in families; you get assigned a seat at the table.
The tragic element of a character is always intriguing I think.
Cat lovers turn into cat collectors.
'Little Miss Sunshine' snowballed. It was a tiny movie. We shot it in 30 days, and it was really fun to do, but it was one of those small movies that you don't hold out huge hope for.
If you're working on a movie, you want it to be projected on the largest tapestry possible, and the sound to be perfect, and for that kind of communal experience of the movies to take place for it.
There's times when I'll see a show, or something cooking on TV, and think, 'That can really be fun when it's working.' But it's a grind. I did that at NBC, it was five days a week. I was doing 'Talk Soup' and 'Later' at the same time. It's a hard job, more difficult than people realize.
You learn more about a person from the people around that person than you do from the person themselves. We all have our own ideas of who we are that may or may not be justified, and you can really find out a heck of a lot more accurately from the people around an individual.
I find fear is a great motivator to work hard.
Setting goals can blind you to opportunities. You might be trying to get to point C. When opportunity B comes, you don't even look at it because you're going straight to C.
There's no harmony in most people in a way, and I'm attracted to it, and I think it makes for good storytelling.
Ultimately, I'm not so sure that, as a person, I'm all that interesting.
I'm happy to report that everybody whose face I've wanted to punch on Earth has already been punched.
Well, I don't know what image people have of me.
Part of filmmaking is always a guessing game, and part of it is always a game of trust.
I was a halfback on an American football team in Athens, Greece - the Kississia Colts - where I went to high school, and we took the Cup my senior year. The downside, and somewhat unfortunate piece of information I have to pass on, is there were only two teams in the league because of the limited amount of Americans.
The automotive corporations, including Ford, I think are in the business of trying to make cars that people will drive.
The irony is that you can't use real rain to make movies.
Everybody's family has problems.
A man always looks good in a dark suit.
I have a very well organized closet.
I went door-to-door selling cable television subscriptions when I was in college. Not to date myself, but cable was just coming on. I had terrible territories, and they would give me $25, if I got somebody to let them come and just put the little cord in their house.
Here's the thing about movies, all movies end up on television. That's their life. Whether you like it or not, I don't care how much money you spend on it, or how big or broad the film is, or who the actors are in it, eventually it's all coming out of the box.
Same job, whether it's comedy or drama. Regardless of the weight of the role, I feel like the job is always kind of the same. Who is this person? What's this guy here, and how is he playing with this thing, and what's he trying to say? And what's the volley with all these other people around him?
I'm a terrible procrastinator. When we go to the airport, if they're not literally closing the door behind my sweaty, hyperventilating body, I feel I've been there too long.
