John C. Reilly Quotations

I'm not a big fan of kids' movies that have this knowing snarkiness to them or this post-modern take on storytelling. I think that sails right over the heads of most kids. There's something to be said for a well-told fairy tale. There's a reason that these mythic stories stay with us.

Animation is a great way to work. No early morning call times, no make-up chair. In live action ,you're always fighting the clock; the sun is always going down too soon.

I am one of those people who is not very patient in the makeup chair. I have been offered movies like 'Planet of the Apes' and stuff like 'The Grinch Who Stole Christmas' and I turned them down.

I give as much as I can, and it's up to someone else to turn it into a movie. Good luck to you!

I know I'm not some matinee idol, but I think we're sold this bill of goods by the media, which says that only the most beautiful and dashing people can become movie stars. So when someone like me sneaks in, they have to redo the calculations.

I view my strongest competition as myself. You're always trying to top yourself, rather than worrying about what other people are doing.

I was never a very dependable employee for anything. Perfect for the actor's life!

The truth is that filmmaking is not really an actor's medium; it's really a director's medium, so all I can really control is the character that I'm playing. So I try to look for characters that are interesting and engaging and different than what I've done before and hopefully it becomes a good movie.

For a long time, it was like I was part of some special forces unit: I'd land, meet everyone, five minutes later I'd have to do some amazing work, then - boom! - I'm out again. You know, playing supporting parts takes courage.

I actually envy actors who have a persona: 'This is the way I am. This is the part I play.' And do it over and over and over. To me, that's a lot easier than trying to reinvent yourself every six months.

I like people who are able to keep pushing themselves and challenging themselves even after great success.

Most boys' first hero is their father. That was definitely true of my dad. He was a proud Irish American and he taught me a lot about ethics and responsibility. He also introduced me to a lot of wonderful folk music.

Being a father has fulfilled me in parts of my life that sustain me. It gives me a comfort and patience. All actors have this hole inside that they're trying to fill by performing. I'm anxious to keep creating, but I'm not so desperate any more because I have the love and support of my kids and wife.

There's something about the water - that solitary kind of peaceful feeling. You're on Earth but not quite.

That's one of the difficult things of being an actor that I'm still not used to. You have to go, you have to show up at these places where you know nobody, and sometimes with really impressive, high stakes people like Roman Polanski.

When I first joined SAG, there was another John Reilly. My dad was John Reilly, too, but growing up I was John John. Nobody in life calls me John C. It's more like, 'Hey you, Step Brother!'

Actually, acting turned out to be the perfect job for me, because I had a lot of different interests. I thought about being a priest at one point. I thought about being a teacher. I thought about being a lawyer. But I think acting is probably the best job for me.

I come from a pretty working-class neighborhood in Chicago. Hard work was just expected of you. It wasn't some noble thing you did; it was a prerequisite. It's what a man did. You get up, you put on your boots, and you work hard. We've lost a lot of that, I'm afraid.

Being unprepared makes me nervous. I'm old-fashioned show folk.

I don't mind doing scripted material. It's actually kind of a relief, because improvising is a little bit like screenwriting on your feet.

Honestly, to tell you the truth, being trapped in any video game sounds like a living nightmare to me. In most video games, the point is it's a fight for survival, so I think it would be a terrifying place to live.

I was a founding member of the 'Dungeons and Dragons' club at my high school. I was in chorus, I was in swing choir. I was an outcast but I was an outcast among a group of outcasts.

I've never been someone who's been given work because of the way I look or because I have some box office appeal. I get work because people know I'm swinging as hard as I can, trying to connect, giving it my level best. I have a face for radio, but here I am doing what I do.

I always felt really guilty if I spent too much time playing video games. It's a colossal waste of time. And I can't say it's a very satisfying feeling at the end of the day, if you've spent eight hours playing a video game; you just end up feeling kind of spent, and used.

If you're really being honest with yourself when you're acting, part of it is touching the real you. You can only separate yourself so much from the character. Those vulnerable moments do touch me.

In Chicago it's really a case of the play's the thing - people are just so happy to be acting, you know? We were all actors - not like in New York or Los Angeles, where everyone says they are actors but they are actually waiting tables and hustling for spots in commercials.

My dad was a big fisherman. He passed away, but a lot of time I spent growing up was on the water, so a lot of my best memories are from that.

Oh, absolutely, it felt more serious than your typical job. One of the things that got us through how difficult the shooting actually was was that we are telling a real story.

In 'Magnolia,' I had to learn all this police training. In 'For Love of the Game,' I had to perform like a major-league baseball player.

Hey, I'm just trying to become the Michael Caine/Gene Hackman of my generation.

For a while I had a blues band in L.A., but I realized I was too optimistic to play the blues. I did not have the misery in my heart that the blues required.

When they're good, I like working with new actors.

I did a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, and his skill level was eons ahead of mine. It was really more like an abattoir - he just slaughtered my character over and over again.

This whole celebrity racket, it's not really my bag. I don't really do that stuff, and I am not looking to get famous myself. I would love it if my characters get famous, my work was well known and appreciated. But I'm an actor, not a spokes model or a celebrity or whatever that is. I don't know how to be that.

This is real human drama, we're not creating some amusement park ride for the summer. Even though the movie is really exciting to watch, it's got a real pathos behind it.

I swear and it comes off a little angry, no matter how funny I'm trying to do it. If I use certain words with a certain intensity, it's like 'Whoa whoa whoa, buddy buddy!'

I love card games, and I've always loved board games and stuff like that as a kid, and I think it's that part of your brain that's engaged in con movies. It's like this 'Who's outsmarting whom?'

I'm much more character based. I try to just be really committed to what I'm doing.

I listen to a lot of Chicago blues, I suppose. It reminds me of growing up, I guess. But I'm also obsessed by close-harmony groups. Actually, I'm fascinated particularly by brother duos, how they blend together. The Everly Brothers, the Stanley Brothers, The McQuarrys. There's something inherently magical about harmony.

I like working. I wish I could say I made a deliberate choice to comedy, but it's just what came my way. It's what the studios wanted to make. Some of my friends were doing it, like Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, and they offered me 'Talladega Nights.' It's just nice work if you can get it. It's a joyful day at work, making your friends laugh.

I always get a headache the first time I watch a movie I'm in. Because you're staring at the screen so hard, your brain is doing all this work trying to put things in context of what the day-to-day experience of making it was. And the timeline that's in your head of when it was made, and on what day, how you felt. And then you're also trying to grasp what it's been edited into.

I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll.

I don't really get off on the anonymous love of strangers, which I think a lot of actors do. They're lacking something in their own personal lives, so they want the adoration of autographs and all that stuff.

I considered a lot of different jobs as a kid. I thought about becoming a priest or a lawyer. My father had a big linen-supply business and I considered working for him. What dawned on me was: 'If I'm an actor, I get to do the fun parts of every job!' Without having to go to four years of law school.

Actors in general are pretty good bullshit artists; we're good at just chewing the fat, interacting with people. So we're good ambassadors for movies.

I was a solid C student because I was doing so many plays. I was a drama nerd, but I was also kind of a Zelig-like character; I would shift between different groups of people. But the people I spent most of my time with were either chorus or swing choir or the drama nerds.

I was more like a middle child. My youngest brother was the baby, so he got all the attention that the baby gets. And my older brothers were getting into so much trouble that I was left in the middle, doing plays. I was up to no good, but my mother didn't know it!

The less people know about me in reality, the more they can accept of me as a character.

I went to an all-boys Catholic school, and not only were we not allowed to wear pajamas, we had to wear dress shirts, dress pants, a tie, dress shoes... they stopped making us wear blazers, like, two years before I started there, so pajamas... you wouldn't even get in the front door wearing pajamas at my school.

The thing I tried to remember when I was younger was 'Do something that's at least as good, if not better, than the last thing you did.' So I started with Brian De Palma and Sean Penn. I had a pretty high bar to start with.

I get the greatest joy from just doing anything, being an actor. Doing music, and doing what I love to do. I don't make a huge distinction between comedy and drama. I think the whole point is just trying to be as honest, from moment to moment, as you can be. If you're honest about the material, and the material is ridiculous, then you're in a comedy.

One of the reasons people find me a believable actor is that I don't seem like one of the gods from Olympus. I seem like someone who was lucky enough to be let into Olympus.

I would love to do a western. I would love to play an explorer. That is always something that has really captured my imagination since I was a kid, like James Cook or Magellan or Earnest Shackleton.

I'm dating myself by saying this, but I was the test audience for 'Space Invaders.' I remember when that was the first game that wasn't a pinball game. I spent a lot of money on 'Space Invaders,' in the form of quarters, of course.

If you get made fun for the way you look, then maybe wearing the same thing every day is the best way to protect yourself.

From the first time I did a movie, people have said, 'Oh, it's all going to change now.' And it would change, but very incrementally. I think I prefer that to some big explosion of fame all of the sudden.

I mean I was very shy but I was also very extroverted because I was doing plays. I'd been doing plays since I was a little kid. But, I did feel like an outsider because I went to like a 'college-prep' kind of high school that had a really big football team and was known for its program so I was like this weird boy that did plays.

I had [at school] my own little posse of people that all felt weird together so it wasn't so lonely.

I'm not of the manor born; I've never felt entitled in that way. I just came to Hollywood to be an actor. All that lifestyle stuff is something to be managed.

I just like surprising people. I never want to get to a place where people see that I am in a movie and they go see the movie and they expect a certain performance one way or the other. That is just inherently boring to me.

Whenever I work on something, I try and throw everything I have at it. Then if the director finds it useful they use it, and if not, they ignore it!

I find people attractive for more subtle reasons than just the way they look.

Despite not looking like a matinee idol, I feel like I have a lot to give. I've never had any trouble with women. People are always surprised with the romantic aspect of my movies.

Acting's all about the confidence you exude, especially on film. I mean, nervousness isn't attractive in anyone, but a film camera will seek it out and punish you.

I'm aware of how lucky I am. Being able to make pretty good money, and get to do a lot of fun work, and at the same time I'm not besieged by photographers.

I would say whisky or pills. Not both because that can have disastrous consequences.

I don't deliberately go into comedy or go into indies, but I do deliberately try to keep changing tact, because I think that is the key to longevity in a career.

I'm a big fan of not letting the audience of off the hook, as they say. I like it when things feel real, and that's oftentimes not comfortable.

Life is often confusing and sad, and I'm a big fan of the slap and the tickle, as they say.

The way you get through having a shitty job is to laugh a lot and goof around.

If I'm committed to something really stupid, then I'm in a comedy.

I love to improvise, but I always thought "Man, it's like the final frontier for improvisational actors, to really go for something emotional, something that's not just chasing the laugh."

I end up improvising in almost everything to some degree, 'cause it's often necessary on movies. The script is one thing, and it's this kind of theory of what you're going to do, and then you get there on the day and you realize, "Oh, the script is not appropriate to this room, the door's over here."

I think just getting a movie done is an accomplishment in itself.

A lot of times, mainstream critics are much tougher on small, independent movies because they can be.

It's a mystery why certain people find certain things funny.

A lot of times, good improv is when both people, or however many people are in the scene, really have no idea what the next thing you're going to say is.

There is something about the water - that solitary kind of peaceful feeling. You're on earth but not quite.

I'm a big fan of the 'Harry Potter' movies and 'The Lord of the Rings' films.

I do a lot of improvising on movies, actually.

Just look around, in life, there's people who want to date people who look like themselves, and there are people who are just looking for a good fit. And a lot of times, a good fit is someone different than yourself. I'm not one to get too hung up on outside appearances. I find people attractive for more subtle reasons than just the way they look.

I like working with people I know. It saves a lot of awkward conversations and getting-to-know-you kinda moments. You trust the people if you know them.

Improvisation, the main thing is it teaches you to be in the moment and present in the moment and be reactive and proactive for what's going on. Someone gives you something - a lot of actors are a little shut off, so they're just doing, "This is my character, these are my lines, I'm going to just send it to you then you send whatever you're sending." Improvisation teaches you to really be listening.

I don't think I could ever stop doing serious movies and just do comedies, or vice versa, but there is something cool about going to work everyday and you're just trying to make your friends laugh. That's nice work if you can get it, you know what I mean? It's different than going to work and knowing that I've gotta slap someone in the face today, and then I've gotta cry, and someone's gonna die, I've gotta get myself to that place.

My family are all storytellers, and I think I inherited a lot more of that gene than other people in my family. I guess I was fun to have around.

If people want to see me in comedies, that's fine with me.

People say, 'Don't you get tired of people coming up to you all the time?' But what's wrong with strangers saying they love you?

Somehow that doesn't feel like a natural human thing to do, to go to those dark places, you have to kind of force yourself to do that. And comedy, it's like you're excited to get there in the morning every day.

Surprising people is the key to career longevity for someone like me.

There's so much joy in doing comedy work, and that's one of the reasons I like to do it - because it's just a hilarious day at work.

Young people can be annoying, let's face it. But they can also be really refreshing to be around and full of enthusiasm.

It's kind of liberating to be able to bring your own ideas to things, but it's also a lot of pressure, it's like screenwriting on your feet.

I hear actors complain about being stereotyped, and a lot of the time, you have yourself to blame. Just don't take the part if you feel like it's a stereotypical part for you. You have control over your life. We don't have the old studio system, where you have to do what they tell you.

I don't know how to be like a Bill Murray or a Will Ferrell, these guys who know how to make a line funny just by, I don't know, some extra-sense perception. I only know character and emotion and real acting; that's all I know how to do.

I always say it takes as much preparation and thought to do a small part as a leading part. In some ways, leads are easier because you have the luxury of time to discover the character.

I'm not a huge sports fan in general, I don't spend a lot of time watching other people do stuff. I tend to like to go out and do stuff myself.

I try to take things that challenge me either physically or mentally, or I have to learn a new skill.

A script is like a theory of a movie.

An actor's life is like a series of - it's like the first day of school happening over and over again.

God forbid you got seasick because there was no option to go back. So that really did force us to be a group.