Peter Scolari Quotes

When it's good, cinema can be one of the most important things in a person's life. A film can be a catalyst for change. You witness this and it is an incredibly spiritual experience that I'd never lived before; well, maybe only in a football match.

'Swimming Pool' was a very important moment for me because the character was written for me.

As an artist myself, I know what it's like to put your heart and soul into something. You can feel the presence of another person.

I randomly took an acting class in undergrad and was reading a monologue from 'Lemon Sky' by Lanford Wilson, and I felt such a connection to the material and then to the audience as I was doing it. This electric current ran through the author, me and the audience, and I felt connected in a way that rarely happens. I was hooked.

My very first movie, 'Mary Poppins,' which I talk about, it just turned me into an obsessive, creative creature who had to sort of reply to the experience by drawing things, making things. It was like it forced - it made me into this obsessive, creative creature... I don't know any other way of putting it.

What I've found recently is the heart, the soul, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't differentiate: If you really live the experience making a movie, it's the same as living it in real life, as crazy as it sounds.

When I went to the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne to study drama, I felt I'd finally found my place in life.

Acting is me, but music is even more me. It's everything.

Making music is so spiritual. I'm not a spiritual person, but music is sacred to me.

Once I found art, it was a wrap.

'Dogfight' is my favorite thing I've ever worked on. It's such a special piece, and I'm so close to the character of Rose. I loved doing it every night.

As an artist, you have to do what you feel passionate about. It has to be something you can connect with.

I went to a mosque in Philadelphia with [my wife] in December 24, 1999. And we we went to this mosque in Philly, and I just had such a strong reaction to the prayer. And I was really emotionally - I felt really grounded at that time. And so to be in this prayer and the imam is doing the prayer in Arabic and I don't understand a word of Arabic but I just remember these tears just coming down my face and it just really connecting to my spirit in a way that felt like I needed to pay attention to that.

I make films for myself, first and foremost, just because it is such a personal experience, and it's something I really have to want to do and feel connected to.

Acting for me is not a business, it's about trying to make pieces of art that I believe that I feel proud of. And it's the journey of that.

Fly with me, touch the face of the true God. And then cry with joy at the depth of my love.

The process of making music is more interesting to me than the end result. If I was a cook, I'd be more interested in cooking food than eating food.

I have knocked on the door of this man's soul and found someone home.

When art is really great, it's really powerful, can really do something to you, make you feel more alive and make you feel more connected to something. If you don't feel like that when you do it, and you just make a movie to make money, that would be pretty boring to me. I just wouldn't do it. That would be like sitting in an office, which I don't want to do.

I had no idea about where I was going. I had no sense of art as anything other than a problem to be fixed, you know, an itch to be scratched. I was in that studio trying my best to feel content with myself. I had, like, a stipend. I had a place to sleep. I had a studio to work in. I had nothing else to think about, you know. And that's - that was a huge luxury in New York City.

I obviously have a different connection to each song in a different way, and they all mean something different to me.

I finished your song, she said. Our last song. And I want to play it for you.

If it shakes you in the right places, it's Gods gift.

I live in New York, and Clara lives in Recife. The character is Brazilian, and as I read the script, I felt like Kleber [Mendonca] had been spying on me in order to create this role [in Aquarius]. Clara and I have different backgrounds. I come from an intuitive world, and she's an academic, but when we got together, we really became one. There are many times when I'm watching the film where Clara will say something, and I will find myself agreeing with her. It was the first time that I had this weird sensation that the character I played is so me, but yet it's so her.

One of the pleasures of being an actor is that it takes you places you wouldn't ordinarily go, and you don't enter as a tourist, you really enter the life of the place.