John C. Reilly Quotes

I always wanted to do dramas. Ever since I was young, I wanted to be in a role where I could play a prostitute or a drug addict, because it's nice to be able to portray someone who is so far from you, which I love.

I've often thought that it would be great to do some acting because nobody would think that I would be able to do it and it scares the living hell out of me.

It's always nice when someone says that they don't realize it's me on screen, but it would be strange to enter a one story while thinking of another character I do, which is completely different.

People tend to think when you're on dramatic films, that it's all so heavy, but it's really not when you're working with great actors.

I don't really think it matters if you go into stage or TV as long as you do a bit of character work, really.

I like working in television a lot. It's nice to have a place to go every day and a group of people to hang out with and work alongside with a common goal. But I think I'll always love stand-up more, because there's so much to discover. But you cannot beat television money with a stick. Not with a stick.

I'll be able to pull off playing an unlikable character because inherently, I think I'm likable.

I've played a bunch of different versions of Walter [from "Fringe"]... I loved it when he was being random, which was probably the original version of him, more than anyone else. I loved doing Walter then, and all of the different mental states that we've played.

In the story, I think as an actor you're just trying to fit into the world.

I think I always knew I was going to somehow be on a stage. I was quite an extrovert, as a child. And I did a lot of music, when I was younger, so I thought I was going to go into music, but I fell into acting, in a really weird way.

Music has always been something I wanted to do. I think just the idea of performing and entertaining and being in the studio is really what I wanted to know how that felt. I started to get into it around the same time I got into acting, but it turned into a side project because my movies were taking up most of my time.

I think I'm a better comedic actress than I am a dramatic actress, but everybody believes I'm this dramatic actress and I'll take it.

I think for acting on stage and in film, one informs the other. Obviously, they require really different kinds of discipline and really different kinds of work. It's more along the same continuum, for me.

There's things that I can do as an actor that I couldn't do in any other form of life and I've got a strange personality. But film requires strange people, so I've got a nice comfy home.

I definitely want to do films. To see a character out from beginning to end in a matter of a hundred somewhat pages and then move on to the next role, is fascinating.

I think insanity is the hardest thing to play.

It's much easier, for example, to play a heroin addict and you're withdrawing - you tear the ceiling off - that's much easier than it is to come in and say, 'Hello.' Or, 'I love you'. When you judge it in that way, the heavy isn't as difficult.

I think the best roles are in dark movies. It's roles that aren't you. It's fun playing someone that's not me. If I'm playing me all the time, then it's not acting. It's just being yourself.

In so many areas, when you think about it, you never really see an actor cross over to music. It always music to acting and it's receivable because when music gives a form of entertainment of art to where it's very personable, it's a passion, it's an intimate type of art to when you hear it, it's them.

I didn't want to be a movie star, I wanted to be an actor. Because acting is what I fell in love with, and acting is what is still challenging for me.

When I saw my first movie, I was fine, but I thought, "Oh, my heavens. It's not about just standing there on my mark and saying these lines. I need to actually act."

I was always sort of a ham as a kid, just always wanting to entertain and to get people to laugh.

Acting means living, it's all I do.

I wanted to be an actor to act, and now, being an actor, you have to dress up, you have to be nice, you have to be smart, you have to be sexy, you have to be ready.

Just concentrate on the performers. Make sure you get the performers, and that's it. That's all we need to do." And I was thinking, "Well what if you do both? Of course the performance is important, the writing is really important. But what if you could have the perfect marriage of making it look really slick as well?" I think that's kind of what I tried to develop as a style, and Spaced was the first TV show I did where all the elements came together.