John C. Reilly Quotations | Page 2

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

The truth is, when you're at the track, it was an interesting thing about stock car racing as a sport, is you almost get more out of it watching it on TV.

Hollywood is an illusion. These intense workplaces, with very close relationships, a few months at a time - and then it ends.

I feel like a teenager myself, so I appreciate it when the kids think you're all right.

Winning is everything.

I like how pure the expression is in music. You can go straight to the heart of an audience rather than through their brain.

I like being employed, you know. That's my favorite kind of acting.

I love that people can't place me. They don't know my name. That's 'mission accomplished' in my world.

I like when people know exactly, have a good sense of themselves, and know exactly what's good for them, I admire that, but I don't have anywhere near that kind of perspective on my own...

I kinda taught myself how to play guitar, and I still play to this day. It's become a pretty big part of my life.

I really enjoy my time off. If I'm going to go to work, it has to be something I really believe in, or else it's totally tedious.

I don't know who I am, to tell you the truth.

Here's the thing, with comedy - and I learned this from Will Ferrell - you can't be ashamed. If you're doing comedy, you have to fully commit to the joke. Shame is not part of it. If you act shy or uncomfortable about your body, that makes the audience shy and uncomfortable. And in a comedy you just want them to loosen up and laugh.

I've worked with a lot of great directors and often times they solicit your ideas.

[Country Music] is the final destination for many punk rockers [...] Rockabilly is the mid-point and then [they] end up at Country [...] There's purity to that music and I think that appeals to a lot of punk rock people - the precision, the purity, and the directness of Country Music.

Really if you look at my filmography, there's something for everyone!

Whatever the reasons that I turn things down, I'm always happy when there's a good result, and I can enjoy it as a movie, you know? I don't feel like, 'Oh man, that was really good. I should have done it.' You have to make the decisions you have to make, whether it has to do with your family or repeating a character or whatever it is.

One of the unique things is that whether we were out at sea or in the middle of the water tank, a lot of times you just couldn't leave. Especially when we were out at sea.

You were there all day long, 12 hours a day. So there was none of this, 'I'm going back to my trailer, my trailer's bigger than your trailer,' that kind of Hollywood nonsense.

You know, the truth is that us actors would all like to believe we re-invent the wheel, every time we play a character. But, we're human beings and our instruments are not violins, they are our bodies and our consciousness and our collective life experience.

I'm bored by repeating myself, and I would imagine that an audience would be bored by me repeating myself.

To me, it doesn't make any sense to pick your work based on the size of the budget of the movie.

Kind of the exhausting thing about doing pure comedy, or something that's broader, is you're kind of a slave to the laugh. If it's not funny, then there's not much point in doing it. The kind of ueber-objective is to make people laugh. You always have to have that in the back of your mind, 'Eh, I've got to figure out a way to make this funny.'

There is a level of fame that is really unmanageable. But most of the people who experience that level of fame are compensated in other ways. Private villas and chauffeured boats.

The kind of über-objective is to make people laugh. You always have to have that in the back of your mind, "Eh, I've got to figure out a way to make this funny."

There are a lot of actors in the world, there's a small number that actually get to work as actors, and there is a tiny group of actors that are celebrated in the way that I have been. I feel incredibly lucky.

Once you become tagged as anything, it becomes difficult to shake it, because the less imaginative people in the business want you to do what worked for the last guy. That's always been something I've had to deal with.

Movies are this thing that came into my life, and it still feels pretend in some way. I kind of do this thing, and I never really accepted this idea that I'm a film actor. That's what I do. I feel like I'm a theater actor that started doing films. Most people have never seen me in a play. They're fun, though.

Oftentimes, a funny situation is funny because it's uncomfortable or weird. The most memorable stories, or the stuff that you repeat to your friends, it's not like, "Oh, I had a pleasant day, nothing happened on the bus today." It's when strange things happen, when you become uncomfortable or knocked out of your own reality, those are the things that are interesting.

It's true that the skills required to be a conman are the same as those required for being an actor. Though those skills are in the service of something a bit more noble with acting, I hope.

It's thought of as an eccentric thing for an actor to really try to maintain quality control through the whole career. Most people think, 'You just work. You just keep working.' And in some ways I wish I could be a guy who's just a workhorse.

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.

Unless you do the same thing, it's tough for stereotypes to stick. That said, whatever you've done that's most popular at a given moment is what people think "you do."

A lot of people that make films say, 'We need this kind of character. Who's done it before? Get them to do it again.' That is exactly what actors are pushing against. It's kind of a cliche to talk about being stereotyped in that way, but it happens.

I would consider directing. I think directing myself would be tough, but I'm definitely interested in directing. I might start off directing a play before I move to a film.

Why people pick me for the roles that they do is a bit of a mystery.

I'm alienated from this world because its weird and I don't want to be a part of it. I want to be part of the people that are more imaginative and crazy.