Celebrity Casting Quotes

In the Emperor's New Clothes, they got a different celebrity to do each voice. They drew up a picture of each character and then each actor wrote their own part.

Casting is really exciting. With 'Twilight,' I wasn't involved at all with the casting in the original. They kept me in the loop, which was great. They'd be like, 'Hey Kristen Stewart's gonna do it' and I was like, 'Really? Awesome.'

I would love Kate Middleton to be in 'Glee.' Wouldn't that be fantastic? That would be great.

I feel I have a political duty to reach out to the general public. I want to make films that the people want to see. So if the people want to see Johnny Depp or Tom Cruise, then it is really my job to incorporate them into my films.

Julia Roberts most definitely would play me in the film of my life. Not just because of the hair but because she has all sides to her personality come through in films that I could just imagine her playing my crazy self so well.

I’ve even written a role for Dolly Parton to play the town mayor!

Oftentimes, when you have a huge studio film and you have big names attached, they like to keep attaching big names.

In terms of the stars, the only ones I cast were Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins. I was in Los Angeles working and a lot of this took place on the telephone. I'd met Maggie [Smith] once and I'd come back-stage, which I'm usually loathe to do because as an actor you don't want people coming back because you want to get home [laughs].

Daniel Day-Lewis would play me as a baby. He can do anything. Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt are fighting out for me now. And Meryl Streep will play me after the sex change. I haven't told you about that, have I?

I was particularly stunned by the casting of Cruise, who is no more my Vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler.

It is really difficult to read a movie script about yourself and to think that a major actor - perhaps even Chris Pine - is going to play this role is really daunting.

It might sound a small thing, but if you want to get Tom Cruise into your movie, without a track record or without those agents knowing you, it's almost impossible. Now I can get through to pretty much anyone I want. Of course, 90 per cent of the time they still say no.

Anyone who's putting money into your movie would always rather you cast well-known people.

When you're casting a show, you have your idea of who you want it to be, and of course, those are going to be very well-known names.

When Scorsese or Coppola cast celebrities in their work, it goes without question.

Broadway producers are happy to have a big Hollywood name they can post on the marquee, but most of them assume that television and film stars really can't handle stage work. Too often, they're right.

Who should play the lead role in a film about me? Dunno. Danny De Vito? Jeff Goldblum? Meryl Streep? Someone of that kind.

'Homefront' was written by Sylvester Stallone. He actually wrote it for himself, which is, for me, an amazing privilege: To be handed a script by Sly that he wrote for himself, that he asked me to do.

I'd love to work with Gerry Butler, Alan Cummings, and Ewan McGregor. It'd be amazing if we could do a Scottish Hollywood movie.

Now Tarantino is making DJANGO UNCHAINED. Everybody is telling me I am in the movie but I've not been asked by Tarantino officially. Not yet. There were many, many other Django films following mine, with other actors and directors, but there is only one Django.

I don't think there's room in video games for people to bring an ego. It's very frustrating for any actor to have someone who's a celebrity take over your place. Like the 'Uncharted' film, they're trying to find someone to play Nathan Drake. And it's like, why do they not think of us? We do this.

The first two actors we cast were Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. Because we started so highbrow, we were able to get anyone. Plus, some of these people have children, and their kids love 'X-Men.' They'll do it because of them - that's our little extra ace in the hole.

It's a struggle. It's really, really hard. I'm already nervous for my next one. You have to put more and more movie stars in movies these days. And of course, I would like to have more than $3million to make it. But, again, if that's what I was offered I wouldn't turn it down. I guess studios know that. But I'm one of the lucky ones, I guess.

People often call and say: "Can you help me to get Bill Murray in our movie." But I'm always like, "well I don't know how to do that!" I've sometimes tried and not been able to get him but then I'll suddenly be very surprised by the thing that he will suddenly decide to do.