Philip Baker Hall Quotes

When I left Cambridge, I applied to regional repertory theaters in the U.K. and got accepted by one of them... And here I am, still at it.

I remember, after graduating high school, I got a part in a play with the Washington Shakespeare Festival - a little part. But I remember thinking this would be a great way of making a living... to be an actor. I never really thought I'd make a lot of money at it.

I did a lot of community theatre and met a manager that worked out of Philadelphia, and she started sending me up to New York for auditions, and I got the part in a play at Manhattan Theatre Club when I was 15.

My vision had always been that I was gonna be a stage actor and that was it.

It's very difficult being an actor and being away for a lot of time, but my sons haven't complained too much too often.

I wanted to travel with my dad to be close to him again. Having babies and raising my own family took so much of my time, I didn't have a chance to be with him very often.

I have to be invested spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically to do theater. I can't do it to make a living. I have four kids, a couple of grandkids, and two mortgages.

Growing up, I was always in my high school musicals and everything, but I kind of stopped doing all that when I finished school and acting became my main priority.

I was the teenage kid growing up in New Jersey watching the Tony Awards and thinking, 'Oh, maybe if I'm lucky I'll make it to Broadway by the time I'm 40!'

I'm a kid that went to theater school. I thought I was going to be making my living doing plays regionally or in New York or on Broadway, and maybe if I got lucky I would do a movie here or there.

My father was a classical singer of baroque music, and my older sister was in musical theatre, and I thought about doing the same thing but then realised straight acting was for me.

I mean, I did plays in high school, but I was convinced you couldn't make a living doing it.

When I retired, I really wanted to spend time with my family and kids. Coaching would have prevented that due to the commitment of the job and travel that goes with it, too.

I got my Equity card from an audition out of Backstage. We did 'Guys and Dolls' and 'Kismet.'

When you're doing a big movie, you're gone for 10 months to a year.

You have to take a huge loss financially to do a play. You have to put aside the commercials and the speeches and the other things that put money on the table, and really save up to do it. And that's what I've done here. But it's worth it to me to be in a really good play.

My dream was to be a working actress that would be working in theater.

There's the job and then there's my family. There's very little time beyond that for friends.

It is hard to get good actors who also do television, ads and films. Theatre requires six weeks of rehearsal for a play.

I'm an active and involved senator. It's very difficult to do the job I want to do and spend as much time as I want with my kids... It is time for me to be a father first to them, and I realize as I watch them grow and become young adults that I won't be able to get this time back.

One of the things that I'd like to get back to that I did as a younger actor was to work on, you know, a rep season for a summer where you did two or three Shakespeares, and you'd do a couple of either new plays or classic plays, and you did a different one almost every night.

My mom was an actress in the local Seattle theater doing experimental plays.

I've always been interested in local politics. I never rule anything out, but I have a very full life right now, with a very young daughter. I have a lot that I want to do still with my career... I can't imagine that would be a possibility for a long time.

I don't want to miss out on my grandchildren and my daughter, and doing Broadway would do just that.

What I like least about acting is that when you're only in one place, you're missing the other part of life.