I'm much more open to being a supporting actor right now. At the age of 60, I'll be second fiddle. Fine. I'm happy to do it.
— Robin Williams
I think 'Dead Poets' was probably my favorite, just to get started with the idea of doing a movie that people treated as more than a movie.
The improv, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but when it does, it's like open-field running.
When Jonathan Winters died, it was like, 'Oh, man!' I knew he was frail, but I always thought he was going to last longer. I knew him as being really funny, but at the same time, he had a dark side.
I write on big yellow legal pads - ideas in outline form when I'm doing stand-up and stuff. It's vivid that way. I can't type it into an iPad - I think that would put a filter into the process.
I met Nelson Mandela, and I really didn't know what to say. It was years ago at a benefit. I was just in awe of this man because of what he'd done.
A lot of vets like 'Good Morning Vietnam' - I get great letters from guys.
One of my favourite actors of all time, although he doesn't necessarily play villains, is Peter Lorre.
Acting is different from stand-up. It gives you this ability to enter into another character, to create another person.
Sometimes over things that I did, movies that didn't turn out very well - you go, 'Why did you do that?' But in the end, I can't regret them because I met amazing people. There was always something that was worth it.
If Heaven exists, to know that there's laughter, that would be a great thing.
I loved school, maybe too much, really. I was summa cum laude in high school. I was driven that way.
It's hard when you read an article saying bad things about you. It is as if someone is sticking a knife on your heart. But I am the harshest critic of my work.
Comedy can be a cathartic way to deal with personal trauma.
In 'The Secret Agent,' it's basically a character that was admired by Theodore Kaczynski, which is some fan mail you don't really want to open. This is a man who is a chemist and who specializes in making bombs and despises humanity.
A woman would never make a nuclear bomb. They would never make a weapon that kills - no, no. They'd make a weapon that makes you feel bad for a while.
Divorce is expensive. I used to joke they were going to call it 'all the money,' but they changed it to 'alimony.' It's ripping your heart out through your wallet.
I don't have a college degree, and my father didn't have a college degree, so when my son, Zachary, graduated from college, I said, 'My boy's got learnin'!'
I think it's great when stories are dark and strange and weirdly personal.
When I went home from Juilliard, I couldn't find acting work.
Politics is so personal, vicious and immediate, how are you going to get anything done? Even the local politics where I live have gotten so ugly.
I knew Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were really talented. As actors, they were both studly young men, and they had great writers' chops.
There's a show in America where all these people compete with ferrets, and they don't even do anything. They basically just hold them up, and if they don't bite you, they might win.
I do believe in love; it's wonderful - especially love third time around, it's even more precious; it's kind of amazing.
With film roles, it just has to be a character either I haven't done before, or a role with somebody really interesting or with an interesting person or group of people.
For me, comedy starts as a spew, a kind of explosion, and then you sculpt it from there, if at all. It comes out of a deeper, darker side. Maybe it comes from anger, because I'm outraged by cruel absurdities, the hypocrisy that exists everywhere, even within yourself, where it's hardest to see.
My mother's idea of natural childbirth was giving birth without makeup. She was hyper-positive - the world is a wonderful place, rainbows and unicorns. If you said anything contrary to her, you were basically exiled.
Do I perform sometimes in a manic style? Yes. Am I manic all the time? No. Do I get sad? Oh yeah. Does it hit me hard? Oh yeah.
Winning an Oscar is an honor, but, between you and me, it does not makes things easier.
From the point of view of being in the public radar, comedians have less problems than other actors. Action movie stars like Stallone or Schwarzenegger usually attract the more aggressive fans.
In the process of looking for comedy, you have to be deeply honest. And in doing that, you'll find out here's the other side. You'll be looking under the rock occasionally for the laughter.
Sometimes you have to make a movie to make money.
I started doing comedy because that was the only stage that I could find. It was the pure idea of being on stage. That was the only thing that interested me, along with learning the craft and working, and just being in productions with people.
The idea of having a steady job is appealing.
I have a difficult time doing an Irish accent; even now, it kind of fades slowly into Scottish.
The idea of Juilliard was that it would give you this toolbox full of skills that you could take with you and apply to anything.
I enjoy performing for heavily armed people. It's easier than going to Georgia.
Tweets? That stuff kills conversation. And people taking pictures with their phone or recording you, sometimes surreptitiously, is creepy. They come up and just start talking to you, and you can see the red light on their phone.
My style is bad white-boy dancing. I can do swing a little bit, but nothing beyond that. My solo dancing is sad. I use my arms, badly.
I was only a leading man for a minute; now I'm a character actor.
I have an idea for a movie called 'The Walken Dead' which is about a town where, instead of zombies, everyone becomes Chris Walken.
I bought one of the first Nintendo systems and brought that home, and we were playing 'Legend of Zelda' at the time, and it was addicting, and I was playing it for hours and hours and hours.
The essential truth is that sometimes you're worried that they'll find out it's a fluke, that you don't really have it. You've lost the muse or - the worst dread - you never had it at all. I went through all that madness early on.
I loved running, but all of a sudden everything hurt so much. I started cycling when Zelda was born.
The 'Aladdin' thing - that's not work; that's just fun. Three days in the recording studio going mad, then the animators do all the work. Not a bad way to cash a large check, my friend.
The bad thing about being a famous comedian is that every now and then someone approaches me to tell an old joke. Don't tell me jokes - I have that. People also say the weirdest things, sometimes sarcastic things, and even evil things. They like to provoke to get a reaction.
I've never been asked to appear on 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!,' so I guess I mustn't be on the professional skids just yet.
Performing comedy in San Francisco to begin with is pretty wild. You've got to - you've got the human game preserve to play off of. And it's a lot of great characters everywhere. You work off that, and then you play the rooms, and eventually you get to a point where you're playing a club that is a comedy club, with other comics.
I've had a lot of people tell me they watched 'Old Dogs' with their kids and had a good time.
Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.
