Dean Norris Quotes

When I was in MTV, I wasn't really looking out to do films.

My father did think I should get interested in television. But I had very little interest in television and it wasn't something I wanted to do. I really never thought about going to work on big feature films in Hollywood. But when we made The Householder, Columbia Pictures bought it. Who would have ever imagined?

It used to be that if you were on a sitcom you couldn't get work in film because it was so different. Now it's almost like you have to be on TV to do other film work.

I started out doing commercials, like Diet Coke and Pizza Hut. And I started to find there was a different life for me, in a different field. From there, I got a call from a director in Italy, and we did 'Indio' I and II, and that's where it started.

I have been inundated with offers to move into a career in television or film, and these, too, are tempting.

I quit doing the movies because the wrestling was going so good and was so on fire during the '80s and '90s, but I was getting all these movie scripts.

When I first got out to Hollywood, they were pushing me for sitcoms, and I didn't really have an interest in them. I wanted to do films and slowly worked that way. And then it became, I guess, this curse of the leading man.

I pulled out of making movies in about '96 or '97.

Honestly, after about three years on a show, you're like, 'Thank you very much for giving me a step up. Now can I go do movies?'

I just finished my 62nd or my 63rd movie here, and you know, I do good ones, I do bad ones, I do big parts, I do small parts, I do cameos - but I've allowed myself a pat on the back, because I realized that I've been working in Hollywood now since 1973.

I really wanted to go onstage. Not movies. But I ended up under contract to Paramount. Now I adore film work.

I spent a chunk of time in New Orleans doing the movie 'Free State Of Jones,' getting to work with Matthew McConaughey, and also did 'Concussion,' where I got to work with Will Smith.

I actually never wanted to be a VJ. Never. It just so happened that I became a VJ, and I was actually kind of like, 'I don't want to be a VJ. I want to be in the movies.' So yeah, I always wanted to be an actor.

There was a time when I really wanted to do films, but they didn't come my way. I would come close and the next day suddenly I'd realise that I am not a part of the film anymore. So that's how television happened.

When you leave WWE, like, when I left, I was thinking, 'Maybe I'll take, like, a year off, and in that year, I'll probably do a Marvel movie, maybe a couple of movies. I don't know.' And, obviously, completely unrealistic.

I had several offers to act in films. But I rejected all of them and decided to plunge into politics.

Can't step from one movie set to the next. Only Samuel L. Jackson can do that. All us mere mortals can't do that!

My retirement is both voluntary and involuntary. One reason, and this is voluntary, is the impact of television. All old movies are turning up on television, and frankly, making pictures doesn't interest me anymore. Another reason is that the film industry is in a declining state.

It's not like you do 'SNL' and then get handed movie roles. You work, you audition for stuff and try to get it. I think, a lot of people, it's the goal to be in movies or just to be working in general. But yeah, some of us get lucky and get some movie roles, and it's nice.

After 'The Empire Strikes Back,' I got to make big films that I didn't care about, 'Never Say Never Again' and 'RoboCop 2,' and then I got too old.

Then when I got to Hollywood, the first musical I did was Festival in 1977.

I'd maybe done about 12 movies when I decided that this was what I was going to do.

I moved to LA and decided to do films and television, mainly because the theater in New York is totally dead.

How my film career happened, I don't know. It was unplanned. I'd been in films and TV throughout the Sixties and early Seventies, but it was really 'The Naked Civil Servant' in 1975 that put me on the radar.

I did pilots here and there but mostly I was doing little bits in movies.