Unconventional Opportunities Quotes

Every Iranian artist dreams of the black market. We don't care about making money.

When it's all over I might be able to say I've had the strangest career in pro football history.

There's a creative freedom with being under the radar. But I guess if you're too under the radar, you get canceled?

I think most of the time with independent films, you don't know where it's gonna end up. I've done a number of films that may never see the light of day, so it ends up being exclusively about the content, material, the characters and the story. Things that you maybe wouldn't get an opportunity to do otherwise. So, as an actor, obviously it's so different.

If you're not concerned about maintaining an image, you can pursue roads that another actor might not take.

I look at all my opponents, and they could be something else. They could go out and get a normal, regular job. I look at myself and I can't do that. I have a strike on my back. I can't have a normal job. So, I've got to fight for everything I've got.

As far as I'm concerned, I want to do everything because life is short. So, when I did 'The Red Violin' film, I got to go to the Oscars, and I got to meet Samuel Jackson, and I got to do stuff that one wouldn't normally do in my world.

I get offered loads of unusual stuff. I just don't do loads because I like staying at home a lot, and I'm a little bit lazy. I don't get that thing of going from film to film that people do. It would drive me nuts, and that level of fame is quite scary.

The truth was that I didn't want a career in the conventional business world.

Sundance is incredible and has been very important for my career as a filmmaker, but it's also not the only route to success. There are a ton of great movies that don't get in and go on and do wonderfully.

I'm never going to be in something as commercially successful as 'Harry Potter' ever again. It's impossible. So that gives me incredible freedom to go off and make the slightly off-the-wall films that I want to make.

'Heathers' was probably the first time when I started to notice that people were opening doors for me and giving me tables at restaurants, regardless of what I was wearing. A whole world opened up to me that was shocking and weird and different, and I enjoyed it, and, you know, I took great advantage of it at times.

A job is just a job at the end of the day, and work sometimes comes from the most unlikely places.

In Hollywood, most things are based on looks, so I'd love to do something that has nothing to do with how I look.

If you enjoy math and you write novels, it's very rare that you'll get a chance to put your math into a novel. I leapt at the chance.

It's those moments, those odd moments that you look for and sometimes by creating this kind of loose atmosphere you find those little moments that somehow mean a lot to an audience when they really register right.

Rarely are opportunities presented to you in a perfect way. In a nice little box with a yellow bow on top. 'Here, open it, it's perfect. You'll love it.' Opportunities -- the good ones -- are messy, confusing and hard to recognize. They're risky. They challenge you.