Aidan Gillen Quotes

I watch the news, which is its own reality show. I love 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' I love it because it's funny and because I realize that I'm happier than Larry David.

I still think, most of the time, when people called shows like 'The Sopranos' or 'Deadwood' 'art' that they were correct.

I think Direct Cinema's trying to be insightful by looking at reality in a very close way while, in fact, much more is staged than we like to think. In cinema verite, it's about trying to make something invisible visible - the role of fantasy and imagination in everyday life.

'Homeland' is not a sensationalist show.

Thank you... 'Real Housewives of Atlanta,' for demonstrating a universal truth: Idiots like me will always watch idiots like you fight on TV. You will forever be in my TiVo.

Conservatives are routinely pilloried on television. A&E likely greenlit 'Duck Dynasty' in the first place because executives believed Americans would laugh at the redneck antics of the self-described 'white trash' family.

The best of American television is thought-provoking, original, brilliant, exciting - from 'The Sopranos' on, whether it's 'The Wire' or 'Breaking Bad' or 'House of Cards,' they're fantastic pieces of art.

Like many other touchstones of twenty-first-century pop culture, 'The Sopranos' was hatched in the late Nineties, predicting a future that never arrived. It was designed for a decade that would be just like the Nineties, except more so, in an America that enjoyed seeing itself as smarter and braver and freer than ever before.

I do believe that we're in a true golden era of television, and I think it started with 'Hill Street.'

Reality television paints a simple black-and-white world of good characters and bad characters; people we want to root for and people we want to see ruined. There is none of the gray ambiguity that colors real life. I no longer watch a lot of reality television, but sometimes I can't look away from 'Honey Boo Boo.' I just can't.

'Upstairs Downstairs' somehow bestrode the different genres that had come before it to create a new drama entity. I suppose that's one of the reasons why it became so instantly popular.

'Heroes', 'Desperate Housewives', 'The Sopranos' - they're all very stylised. 'The Wire' is much more rooted in realism and honesty. In American television, I can't think of anything I'd rather have been in because it has got something to say and that is the kind of thing I want to do.

The women in 'Downton Abbey' don't compare to the women in 'Upstairs Downstairs.' Ours are stunning. We've got Laura Haddock, Keeley Hawes, Claire Foy... beautiful women.

The biggest threat to any politician is an artist. Comedians unleashed can do a great deal of damage. David Letterman can do more damage than any Republican assault by Newt Gingrich.

I know that if I had a television in my flat I would convince myself that everything on it was really interesting. I would say, 'I'm a Celebrity - Get Me Out of Here!' is so sociologically fascinating that I think I'd better watch.

I've been watching more American TV because of all the great TV series that have come out in the last five to 10 years. I'm a 'Sopranos' fan, I'm a 'Wire' fan, I'm a 'Mad Men' fan. I'm a 'Deadwood' fan. It makes me optimistic for the future of storytelling on TV that producers are willing to take that kind of jump.

I like how TV used to be - 'Boys from the Blackstuff' and 'Play for Today', instead of 'Stars in Your Eyes' and 'Celebrity Come Cook With Me' or whatever. I hate all that stuff.

The fact that the Kardashians could be more popular than a show like 'Mad Men' is disgusting. It's a super disgusting part of our culture, but I still find it funny to make a joke about it.

The thing that makes a great genre movie is one that's not just entertainment, not just horror or sci-fi or whatever. The ones I love are the genre pictures with some subversive message underlying it all.

'The Wire' was a combination of great TV and great theater.

I really got into 'The Walking Dead.' That was genius. And I have to say, my husband is on 'Shameless,' and I think it's a brilliant show.

I like A&E. I like those corny intimate-portrait things. They're so kind of ingenious and artificial and soothing.

There's no mistaking the fact that some of the best longform fiction out there now is in American television. 'The Wire' and 'Deadwood' and 'The Sopranos.'

I barely watch TV apart from the news. Most of it is rubbish. There's all this reality nonsense and dross. I think there's a market for a well-produced, well-written melodrama like 'Dallas.' It's pure entertainment.

Not to toot our own horn, but when 'The Sopranos' was on, it was as good as any movie that was coming out in the theater. I think that goes for a lot of shows today.