Todd Haynes Quotes

I myself am a great James Dean fan. He had this aura and enigma about him.

I guess he was such an open, emotional vessel that I think he tapped into human nature, so it just left people wondering what would have happened. I think James Dean would be 83 today. He could be here, what would he be doing?

Robert DeNiro, who may be the greatest living actor, usually acts in a way which is very stone-faced, like Steve McQueen.

I admired Marlon Brando as I grew up. I though he was one of the finest screen actors around.

The first time I met James Franco, he was dressed like James Dean. He was James Dean, literally, filming a biopic.

I'd say James Dean is someone that's really inspired me. Just the fact that he did only three movies before he died at such a young age, and yet everyone knows who he is. It really blows my mind.

There's a wealth of information on James Dean, and everybody has an opinion on him. James Dean made some kind of impression on everybody.

Every actor turns everything round to their character.

My grandfather talked about James Dean; they were both very much into method acting.

I like the legend behind him. James Dean symbolizes the young actor's dream. He struggled to get into Hollywood. He shot to fame at the age of 24 but only got to star in three films. It's kind of a fantasy of what could have been.

Actually, the person I related to was James Dean. I grew up with the Dean thing. Rebel Without A Cause had a very powerful effect on me.

I like playing really super-intense, live-in-the-moment characters. It asks me to not phone it in. It's impossible to phone it in. Every American boy has spent his childhood pretending to get shot.

I aspire to be Jack Nicholson. I love his every single mannerism. I used to try and be him in virtually everything I did, I don't know why. I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest when I was about 13, and I dressed like him. I tried to do his accent. I did everything like him. I think it kind of stuck with me.

Johnny Depp is somebody I really love working with because he doesn't care how he looks. He wants to become weird characters and I like that.

The great exception to that, of course, is Johnny Depp, who is absolutely the ultimate character actor. Johnny Depp is the future of the character actor and thanks to his success maybe we will see the return of an era when my sort of actor is back in vogue. It's not in vogue for me to be in Hollywood movies as lots of different people.

Bill Murray I always liked. I'm not as good as him, but there's a quality in him that I like. And then there's DeNiro, I'll never be that.

Patrick Swayze was risk-taking - because he not only did a transvestite, but in Donnie Darko, he played a pedophile! Talk about a risky thing for a movie star, and he jumped right in. We even shot some of those video sequences of his character out on his ranch. I mean, he opened his heart and his ranch to us. He was just an awesome guy.

It's always nice when someone says that they don't realize it's me on screen, but it would be strange to enter a one story while thinking of another character I do, which is completely different.

Nice characters are boring!

I love playing characters that go to extreme places, and I love to explore different kinds of psychological landscapes, so it is ultimately a kind of fun, but it's also complicated and colored by the depth of the nastiness of it, at certain times, as well.

I don't make comparisons between any movies. I compare characters. All my actions, performances, all my films, they are driven by the characteristic. If I'm playing a cop, then I give him a particular style - I may not know that style, but as an actor I have to be responsible to do your homework and do your research and training and stuff like that.

The point of acting is to hide yourself and get lost in character. To play the same character in eighteen movies would be defeating the purpose I believe so I try to keep a little bit of diversity.

Could I see him acting as Warren Beatty directed, and what would that be like? When you see him as those characters, once you get to know him, there is so much of him in them. In fact, I saw so much of him in them that it made me laugh.

Bob Duvall is a great actor because each time out, he creates a whole, complete character. You have the feeling that you're not seeing an actor at all, but a fully realized human being. Think of how he was in The Godfather. If you didn't know Bobby, you'd think that he really was Tom, the consigliere. Then you see him in Santini, and he's completely different. He's not only a personality, he's a consummate actor.

Whenever I play a role, whether it's good or bad, an evil person or nice person, I believe in being a purist and going all the way with the role. If I'm going to be a villainous wrestler, I believe in going all the way with it and not breaking character and not giving away to the audience that I'm playing a role. I believe in playing it straight to the hilt.