Stephen Sommers Quotes

I love the possibility that anything can happen in any moment with acting. That you have the opportunity to experience lives and adventures that you may not have otherwise.

I would like to be in tons of different types of movies and do different things. I like action movies, and with 'Mr. Peabody and Sherman', I got to see a historical movie, too.

I don't know what its like for most actors, but really clearly for myself acting has always been the fulfilment of personal fantasies. It isn't just art, its about being a person I've always wanted to be, or being in a situation, or being a hero.

I don't outline at all; I don't find it useful, and I don't like the way it boxes me in. I like the element of surprise and spontaneity, of letting the story find its own way.

I actually like older horror movies more than newer ones because when I'm watching newer ones, like 'Chucky' or 'Saw' or whatever, I'm like, 'Come on, really, this isn't even good, all it is is blood and knives.' I like when it has a story line, you know? When it's actually a movie.

Sometimes the character will go into a completely different direction than I expected once the cameras start rolling. That's what I love about what I do.

Every two weeks on 'Doctor Who,' the set is completely different, the world is different and there are new actors coming in. So, it's constantly surprising, and it's a pressure that you relish, actually.

In an action film you act in the action. If it's a dramatic film you act in the drama.

There is no winning or losing, but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you're involved in, whether it's a fantasy game, the Wild West, secret agenst or whatever else. You get to sort of vicariously experience those things.

My final historical romance came out December 2005. While I enjoyed writing medieval romances, I was also dying to write something with more edge.

Every so often, you want to map out your plot mythology but never so specifically that you can't let a story surprise you. You want to allow the type of action of the writer's room so that you have the ability to take a left turn.

If you take my performance or my understanding of the role and my appreciation for story and then dress it in CGI, that I guess becomes an action film.

I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.

The longer I've been doing this, the more I've realized that you have no idea what kinds of roles are possible for you - dream roles can take you by surprise. That being said, I need to play Hamlet one day. I'd also love to be in a play that I have written myself.

One of my favorite things about doing movies is that you get to do different things you'd never do in real life.

There was a big horror boom in the '80s, and I liked its originality and what you could get away with.

I think on 'ER,' my other long-running show, I had some ideas about what's going on. 'Stargate Universe,' they were kind of secretive too a little bit about what they wanted to do, but I kind of liked working this way. I like the surprises, and I like knowing just enough to work on the character.

Actors get to go to these amazing worlds. In 'Terminator,' I was a cyborg with feelings; in 'Avatar,' I lived for 15 months on a fantastical planet, and in 'Clash of the Titans,' I get to fight a scorpion the size of a dump truck. It's a bizarre job, but you explore yourself.

It's always been the genres that fascinated me. I think great action movies and great thrillers are transformative.

I would love to do some type of action feature. That's my goal. A really cool, Transformers-type feature would be awesome.

I think you can achieve things in television that you can't achieve on film, and I think we managed to do a lot of that in the first season of 'Lost.'

I didn't have any expectations with 'Traveller' - I don't think anybody did. That's how I prefer the process to be.

With supernatural type of movies, if they're not done correctly, there are a lot of actors just running and screaming and looking scared for an hour and forty, and that can get a bit old.

Great stories and acting always win the day. If the story behind the scares is dramatic and the filmmaking is great, it works. If those things aren't great and the scares are secondary, it doesn't.

Han Solo is more interesting than Superman because he's flawed. Superman's flaw is kryptonite, and that's it. He can make time go backwards, for God's sake, but with Han Solo or Indiana Jones, there's a bit of humanity there.