Kevin Kline Quotes

Too many actors get on an ego trip and won't do commercials, so they sit around for 20 years between jobs.

First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don't come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.

I still do commercial work as an actor, which I love, because it's very quick, and it definitely pays my bills.

If you have to pay the bills, and you write something you're not proud of, use a pen-name for that.

One of the big struggles for an actor is sometimes you have to take work that you don't necessarily want to do so you can pay rent.

Sometimes I take a movie that I know is not great; it's not great on the page, but I need to work. Sometimes I need to make the money. I need dough. I want to work, and so I'll take something that is compromised in some arena. But it's like, actors gotta act.

I did a lot of violent junk just because I needed the money - alimony movies, you might call them - and then I decided to start turning down the junk scripts and wait for something better, no matter how long.

Which is why I felt I was truly blessed this year, with leads in two nice films, and also the luxury of being able to do a studio film and an independent afterwards was fantastic.

There was a point in time where I was doing movies to be able to afford to live in a certain way.

I went to a few really bad commercial auditions because I needed the money, and when you booked a commercial, your life was made: you could eat.

You know, I was a kid when I went into 'Coronation Street' and I had an amazing time. I got some fantastic opportunities from Corrie and from 'Soapstar' and I'd never say they did anything other than help me.

A month before graduation I got an off-Broadway job. Then I did some commercials, including one for MCI. You can only see half of me, but it paid well. Thank God for commercials.

Film is different for me now. If the money is good and it's not totally revolting, I'll do it.

Soap opera wouldn't be my first choice, but at this point in my life, I would consider a soap. It would allow me to act and still do other things with my life.

Any actor will tell you that you go where the work is, especially when you have children.

It implies a slight failure as a writer that you are reduced to being a ghostwriter for the money.

The work that I've gotten in the hiatuses seems to indicate that I will have a little more work after 'Mad Men' than I did when I was scraping by while I was temping in New York, but who knows? People very easily could be like, 'Meh, we're done with that. We've got Jon Hamm. We're good without the weird one with glasses.'

Well, I was getting a lot of money then, and I wasn't getting any Hollywood films, so I just did those. I'd always do a play in between. Whenever I ran low on funds, I'd always rush off to do a movie somewhere.

When I came back from filming 'Abduction', I told my agent: I'm staying in London now. If it takes doing children's theater from the back of a van in Kilburn, that's OK. I need to be with my family. My job is to keep the family together and provide for them.

I won't say I've closed the door on acting.

I'm trying to treat it as a hobby. Making bread and butter as an actor is tough.

I have made a promise to myself that I will have no limitations as an actor. I have realised I have to pay attention to the commercials or the business aspect of cinema, but deep inside, I am purely an artiste.

Mum did a lot of commercial theatre and farces in the 1980s and '90s to make sure the school bills were paid.

I don't feel comfortable with the glorification of violence. But, as an actor who has had long periods of unemployment, you have to be lenient with your convictions.

There isn't anything that pays you as much money as acting while you are deciding what the hell you're going to do with yourself.