I don’t believe in competitions between artists. This is insane. Who has the authority to say someone is better?
ALAN ARKINI played guitar. I’ve always considered myself an actor, but I wasn’t making a living as an actor. So I was in a couple of folk groups that managed to keep me in underwear and burritos.
More Alan Arkin Quotes
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Most of the time, I’ve been really fortunate to work with people who are really fun to work with.
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All I can say is if the part doesn’t delight me in some way, or I can’t feel any compassion for it, I just can’t do it.
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I suppose it is, but I think it would entail doing the same things over and over again without taking chances, without taking risks or exploring our limits, without finding out what we can and can’t do.
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For many years my acting came from a place of surmounting some enormous obstacle.
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I don’t believe there’s anything in life you can’t go back and fix.
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Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine a Cockney singing group with a Southern Negro style and Indian and electronic music.
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The ancient Vedas – the oldest Hindu philosophy – and modern science agree that time is an illusion. If that’s true, there’s no such thing as a past or a future – it’s all one huge now. So what you fix now affects the past and the future.
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I had a hard time treating my field as if it’s horse racing, putting actors in competition against each other.
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[The business is] more corporate and more formulaic and less experiential.
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No matter what you do or where you are, you’re going to be missing out on something.
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Confronting some stern and faceless judge who would condemn me to a pit of hell if I didn’t achieve the “zone,” if even for a moment. Not a particularly happy place to work from.
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No matter how much time you spend reading books or following your intuition, you’re gonna screw it up. Fifty times. You can’t do parenting right.
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I’m an actor. My life as an actor depends on who sends me what. I’m just taking the best stuff that I can find that’s sent my way, regardless of how big or little the paycheck is.
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A product is most easily sold when it has an identity. So they wrap you all up and put a label on you.
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But one of the things I learned from improvising is that all of life is an improvisation, whether you like it or not.
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I gotta keep busy. I’m not happy unless I’m working on two, three things.
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Things are never going to turn out how you think they will.
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Truth is always unfolding. It’s not an absolute.
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Marriage requires searing honesty at all costs. I learned that from my third wife.
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We might just as well let the rest of it go, join the party, and dance our hearts out.
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I don’t love the business. I never wanted to be a part of it. I don’t think any actor does.
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I don’t think it does the audience any good to know what I do to prepare.
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TV has taken reflection out of the human condition. People didn’t use to have a ready answer for everything, whether they knew something about it or not.
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I’ve always considered myself an actor, but I wasn’t making a living as an actor.
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I see how the industry and the studios feel it’s important, but I don’t really have a feeling for being in competition.
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You know what Andy Warhol’s sole contribution to this country has been? He made Campbell’s Soup a household word.
ALAN ARKIN