In my junior year, I saw 'Zorba the Greek' with Anthony Quinn, and I was transported by it. I wanted to live, laugh, travel.
— Jonathan Banks
That first episode of 'Newsroom,' the way it just cooked, I thought it was really good.
We've all been the brunt of jokes at times.
You can never know your lines well enough, and you better listen.
There's a lot of people in my family who've adopted children.
I say this to young actors: You don't get into this because you think you're average. You get into this because you think, 'I'm good.' It's an art form, and I'm an artist. But as an artist, you know there's not a soul in the world that's going to believe in you other than yourself.
Never equate yourself with whatever success may be and how fleeting that is. The only thing you can do every day is become a better actor. That's the only thing I have control over.
I like my wife. I'm stupid in love with my wife and always have been.
It's not that I don't enjoy a good mystery that comes and goes in a hour. I do, but God, 'Breaking Bad' and 'Saul' unfold like novels.
'Wiseguy' for its time was good. It was really good. And it holds up still. But a lot of the restraints have been taken off now.
I grew up in Chillum Heights in the Washington, D.C. area., and it was never a garden spot. When guys go, 'Hey, when I grew up, my neighborhood was tough, and it was this and that'... the reality is that it was just a terribly sad place. And thank God, I was able to escape it.
When I walk onto a set, no matter what it is, I always do the very best work that I can. But I'm not braindead, and I want to do things that I want to do, you know?
I grew up in Washington, D.C. Suffice to say, it was not a garden spot.
From the time I could visually perceive film or TV, I was just enthralled by it. I thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world.
I probably carry a fair amount of sarcasm in my daily life.
I've played a lot of bad guys over the years, a lot of hardcore guys. At the same time, I've done a lot of comedy.
If I had my way, we'd rehearse things to death.
God bless my mother - she's long gone now, but she'd work all day and go to school at night. She started out in life as a housekeeper at 15 years old, totally on her own, and she retired as a college professor. But there were some hard times. It's not easy for a woman who's only trying to do the best for her kid but who could never be home.
People tell you who they are. There are big neon signs going off. 'Pay attention! This is who I am.' And most of us put out hands a little bit over our eyes. We don't see that.
It really bothers me that Stephen Cannell has died. I had lunch with him about eight months before he died, and... I really liked him. I really did.
I love 'Boardwalk Empire,' but there were moments where I thought it didn't have the constant through-line that 'Breaking Bad' did and 'Better Call Saul' does.
I love Russell Crowe's line to Oliver Reed in 'Gladiator' where he asks him, 'Are you in danger of becoming a good man?' It's one of my favorite lines ever.
The funniest guy I've ever worked with - it's just one of those things, again, where we look at each other and just laugh - is Jimmy Byrnes from 'Wiseguy.' Jimmy - we can't be in the same room together. He knows he can make me laugh just by looking at me.
Boy I could do this forever; I truly enjoy bad guys.
Forty-five years since I made my first paycheck, and I'm telling you that 'Breaking Bad' is as good as it gets.
I have no trouble walking around. But every once in a while, somebody will come, during the course of the day, and say, 'Oh, I recognize you from such-and-such,' and yeah, they'll make a connection. I think for the most part, people don't go, 'Where do I know him from? Does he work at the bank?'
'Homeland' is great.
I do always get cast in these world-weary parts.
I think I've been cast as toughs as far as I can remember always, always.
I was a latchkey kid from the time I was 7 years old.
I was a janitor when I was 16, cleaning out garbage rooms in Washington, D.C., and they were foul. It gets really hot in D.C. in the summertime, and you then take on the essence of garbage. People would stand away from me on the sidewalk as I came toward them.
If I could ban boxing, I probably would, but I'll tell you in the same breath, I loved it growing up.
Ed O'Neill is just a good, good human being.
If you had ever told me that the finest film work was going to be done on television, I wouldn't have believed it.
If you had told me in the Seventies and Eighties that TV would be as edgy or edgier than most films, and more intelligently written than most films, I wouldn't have believed it. There's great stuff out there.
Thank God for theater and film and television and my very, very, very lucky life.
I've got eighteen-year-old twins that need to go to college, so there's still a financial issue, but I could retire tomorrow and just count ducks by the side of the lake, and that would be just fine by me. I'm not a high-energy guy.
I honestly do feel - and I hope I don't gag anybody if they read this - but I feel like I'm one of the luckiest people in the world.
I've died so many times. I'm 65. On my 40th birthday, my girlfriend gave me a reel with ways I had died, whether it was by knife, or electrocution or drowning or being thrown off a building or whatever it might have been. I've died a lot of times!
