Most people think glamor is happiness.
— Peter Falk
It depends how lenient you are with your definition of artist. If you're going to include those who tap dance at the high school recital, then maybe I am.
Acting is like golf: analysis leads to paralysis.
I once did a film in Russia because I wanted to see what the hell was going on there.
In order to be totally spontaneous, you can't be too obsessed with accuracy, but if you're inaccurate in a drawing, it will look fake, and when you act, it will sound fake. You have to find miraculously some proper balance between the two, but there's no formula.
What's the name of that famous museum in Paris? The Louvre? I went through that place in 20 minutes.
Initially, they wanted Columbo to wear a driving coat. I said: 'Are you kidding? He's not an English aristocrat.'
I'm makin' a lotta dough, everyone knows who you are, and who the hell cares whether you're typecast or not? Also, there's something wrong with complaining about being typecast in something you really enjoy doing.
The truth is, no one is like Columbo.
Strange thing, this television.
If I'm a guy reading a newspaper, and I hear this actor who I know gets great seats at basketball games, and he's complaining about being typecast, I think, 'Hey man, count your blessings.'
I used to take girls out on a date to Night Court. And I'll tell you, most girls, they got a kick out of going to Night Court. 'Cause you get a lot of laughs... and it's cheap.
I used to dread somebody saying, 'Whatsa matter with your eye?'
I think people identify with Columbo because he is an average man.
To be a theater actor, I think you have to do plays all the time.
There were no artists in Ossining, which was the home of Sing Sing prison. Most of the parents of the guys I knew were guards there.
I like stories that grow, that have unpredictable layers. As opposed to Hollywood movies that start out with a lot of shock and noise and peter out into an unconvincing cliche.
Everybody wants to be a movie star. I bet if you ask that guy would he like to be a movie star, he'd say, 'Sure.'
My wife loves to get all dressed up and go out, and I'm this gloomy Virgo. It works because of the mutual recognition that we are two democratic narcissists. She does what she has to do, and I do what I have to do. We respect that.
I don't like getting up in the morning, getting in a car, driving on a freeway, and stopping at a gate where two guards are standing there, then walk into a studio that looks like a bunch of airplane hangars.
Good actors are always looking for props. They're looking for behavior. It makes it a lot easier. You're not solely dependent of what's coming out of your mouth. You're also less self-conscious, less aware of the camera.
Your instincts for what's dramatic are the same whether you're working on a drawing or on a script.
Along came a police lieutenant named Columbo, and my life would never be the same.
It helps an actor an awful lot when he looks like the part. There's nothing more disconcerting, that makes you more anxious or more insecure, than when you don't look like who you're supposed to be.
I hate to talk about typecasting, because being typecast as Columbo ain't cancer.
I've been asked a few thousand times how much of Columbo is Falk and vice versa.
There isn't an Eskimo who doesn't love 'Columbo.'
Hartford had the Mark Twain Masquers, which was fantastic. They had been in business I don't know how many years. They knew how to build sets and sell tickets and put on a play. My day started at night. When I left the office, that's when my day began.
I love Chicago. It's one of the great cities. I'm crazy about the town. It reminds me of New York when it was at its best, the New York that used to be and is no more. I love the architecture, the old stuff and the new stuff.
I'm not an ace at small talk.
There's a bit of a problem. The script that I like, the network doesn't like. The script that they like, I don't like.
I used to have this idea that you can spend years in the movies and TV and then, at the drop of a hat, say 'Oh, I'll go back and do the theater.'
I thought actors were artists and that artists had to be European.
The celebrity craze is a little much. But it's good for me, so you don't bite the hand that feeds you.
If you were brought up in the '40s, a kid in Ossining, New York, hanging out at the poolroom and stealing, how can you think, 'Here I am in Ossining. I, too, can be a movie star!'
I don't dwell on it. But I guess everybody hopes that they go in their sleep and that it won't be long and painful.
I've been there a thousand years, and I never felt comfortable. Beverly Hills - when I first saw it, I thought they put it up this morning. You got to pack water to get to the drugstore.
Actors know one thing: If you're left just with words, you're in trouble.
My idea of Heaven is to wake up, have a good breakfast, and spend the rest of the day drawing.
I never turned a part down when they offered me money.
Certainly, you envy the guys that have done all kinds of things, a variety of good scripts and good directors. Then again, having worked with Cassavetes has satisfied a big part of that.
Oh, I was some efficiency expert. On my first day, I couldn't find my own office in Hartford and wound up in the Post Office.
I'm secretly very stuffy.
God didn't design anyone to be recognized by 2 billion people.
What wouldn't have happened to me if I hadn't ended up in Hartford, Connecticut.
You think you're in another civilization, another time, and then you see antennas coming out of these hovels, and your mouth falls open when you see the descendants of the Incas shouting 'Columbo! Columbo!'
I lose things. I am preoccupied. I am misty. Eyeglasses? I go through eyeglasses like tissue.
Sure, I miss some things about the stage. The thing I like is the immediacy. But then I complain, 'I gotta do the same part for six months.'
In the beginning, when you're acting in amateur theater and off-Broadway, it was unheard of that anyone else would get your costume. And it was important to get a good costume. You put time into that.
When I was growing up in Ossining, N.Y., playing pool with the guys, the thought that any one of us might become an actor was as far-fetched as being knighted by the queen of England.
