industry changes Quotes

My only problem with fans is when they turn pro. For example, when all the professional writers were fired by DC in the '60s, they brought in a generation of comic book fans who would have paid to have written these stories.

I have such memories; I keep thinking about all the people I worked with. I was in the recording studio and I was talking to one of the engineers who is 24 and they don't know these people. They just absolutely don't know the people and it just tickles me. I don't feel like I've grown up.

When I started acting, I did many films without even an idea of what the script was about. The film would start, and then we would discover what we were expected to do on the sets. Those days have changed.

I started movies in 1980. I don't think anything's changed for the best. When it comes down to certain technologies and certain things that have afforded more people to maybe have a shot at making a movie or something like that, that's good. But you also end up with 50,000 times the amount of bad movies, because now anybody can make a bad movie.

When I started, I had a really hard time getting work. It was the mid- to late-nineties. There was the WB. My age was perfect for it, but I just never came across as a youngster. I had to grow into my age in order to start working, and by the time I did, it was when things started to get good.

When I was super famous, there was definitely a distinction between how one was treated if they were on TV and how one was treated if they were on film. I don't know that that distinction exists as much now.

There's been a growing dissatisfaction and distrust with the conventional publishing industry, in that you tend to have a lot of formerly reputable imprints now owned by big conglomerates.

I do feel that I'm talking to someone who's in a totally different place from where I was when I started modeling. I was fortunate enough to have the wonderful designers and amazing photographers around me, and editors that I knew, and if I wanted to ask a question, I asked them. So that gap has broadened a bit.

It's sad when you see most of your friends in the business gone, like Tommy Cooper, Frankie Howard, Eric Morecambe, Roy Castle, Les Dawson. They were very dear to me. You no longer have the chance to bump into them at a celebrity do.

For the only time in my career, I came in and met Tony [Richardson] for the part - I did not read, I just met with him - and in the middle of the meeting, he told me that I had the part [in The Hotel New Hampshire]. There was never, "Well, thank you, and we'll have my people call your people." There was none of that kabuki that goes on now endlessly for even the smallest role.

Other than advances in technology and equipment, making a movie is the same as it was when I started, at least. I don't go back to the silent era.

To see a lot of the smaller labels disappear or get gobbled up by the bigger labels, that's a shame. It was a bit of a shock at first to see the demise of the record stores.

The problem now with changes in the music industry is that there's almost no point in making records anymore. The only thing really is to tour, and then you're revisiting history. Maybe it's better to leave it, if you see what I mean.

It's just that back then we didn't know that was considered being a coproducer. I would sit on the side and say what I wanted musically, but at the time we thought if you aren't the one playing it, you don't get the credit. Now you'll start seeing my name listed as producer.

Rock and roll seems to have had a mellowing in the business where it got harder to sell individual records and make money doing that.

I see that things are getting made a lot faster for less money and there are a lot less opportunity, I think, for actors. There's not a lot of work in the U.K. I mean, that's why everyone's moving to America because that's where the work seems to be. But it definitely feels like a lot more of a slog to get a gig these days. I suppose that's a lot to do with our current climate and financial messes. I certainly see that people seem to have to work harder with a lot less time.

So much has changed since the '70s and '80s when it comes to acting and being in the public eye. We'd go out to a restaurant, and there would be five or six people. Now there's a lot more, plus social media, and this desire to bring other people down.

It's not just in my industry... everything is so sensationalized that there's not a lot of heart and soul in a lot of things there used to be heart and soul in.

The short-term problems are economic - royalties, unions, irresponsible management. The long-term problems are artistic, and they started 40 years ago with the advent of television and the upgrading of films.

I can't be part of what is being done in films these days and hence I don't do films anymore.

The British regulatory system was revised, so that bigger profits were encouraged, which removed the option of big spending on programming. Quality just fell off a cliff, and all the old hands either left or were fired for being too expensive.

The fact is, there's a ton of opportunities out there now for professional wrestlers which, when I was coming through, weren't really there. The only game in town realistically was WWE, and it was very, very difficult to see yourself working anywhere outside of that.

All of the changes in publishing since 1960 are significant. There are far fewer publishers.

I don't do much acting anymore anyway, and not to work for 20th Century Fox is really the least of my worries.

When television emerged, it opened up many avenues for actors like me, but after a point, it also became very limiting.