David Halberstam Quotes

LA is the only place where people know my name and still walk up to me and ask it. And I think that was really representative of a lot of the transplant people in LA. I just found everything so phoney.

We're interested by public personas and private personas, otherwise we wouldn't put on with actors rambling on with the same kind of stuff, over and over again, saying variations of the same thing. I'm always amazed by how fascinated people still are by actors because it's the same version of events that actors describe, all the time.

If an interview just serves the idea of celebrity, then I think that sucks. I don't want to do that.

Everyone wants to get behind the red rope, but actually: be yourself, don't believe what you see, don't believe all this marketing.

If everyone really knew what a jerk I am in real life, I wouldn't be so adored in the slightest.

I am utterly bored by celebrity interviews. Most celebrities are devoid of interest.

Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.

I don't want to be famous for being famous.

Most actors and actresses are performative as people.

There's nothing less funny than someone who looks cool. There's nothing more unappealing.

I'm sure Sting's a lovely guy. It's just that nobody wants to be seen as that holier-than-thou thing. That over-earnestness is a bit of a problem with people in bands and celebrities or whatever.

I remember when I first started modeling, and I would read interviews with people. Then I would see them, and they would always say something entirely different to a crowd of people than they would say privately. I always found that really offensive.

Ronald Reagan had a kind of shallow movie-star charisma - a combination of makeup and the skill of a good actor - but it wasn't the real thing, and was something that he could turn off when the cameras weren't running.

I have gotten a number of invitations to be on television shows as 'the dad,' but that was Kryptonite to me. I was like, 'This would be the death of me. I'll be a cesspool of niceness.' It doesn't feed me.

For me, the whole fame and industry facade is a load of rubbish.

Any actor who says that they don't want the attention, and that they're tired of all the interviews and photoshoots, are just pretending.

Pseudo' was about, how after moving to Toronto I saw a lot of inauthenticity. A lot of fake people that aren't about having real moments. Real conversations.

The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!

Johnny Depp is, to me, a rare kindred spirit with like sensibilities, who has escaped the beast. He's probably one of the few people that have survived Los Angeles as a human being.

It isn't necessary to be an untouchable rock-icon guy surrounded by bodyguards and be ushered in and out and have everyone do everything for you. It isn't necessary to change the way you present your band to the public just because you're successful. That happened a lot in the '80s: there was a school of thought that said people would like you more if you acted like you were the unattainable star.

what bothers me today is the lack of, well, i guess you'd call it authentic experience. so much is a sham. so much is artificial, synthetic, watered-down, and standardized...we're standardizing people, their goals, their ideas. the sham is everywhere.

You know, people seldom go to the trouble of scratching the surface of things to find the inner truth.

Fame it's like... When you look through a window, say you pass a little pub, or an inn. You look through the window and you see people talking and carrying on. You,can watch outside the window and see them all being very real with each other. But when you walk into the room, it's over. I don't pay any attention to it.

... when I finish reading People, I always feel that I have just spent four days in Los Angeles. Women's Wear Daily at least makes me feel dirty; People makes me feel that I haven't read or learned or seen anything at all.

I don't think you can be a mysterious rock star the same way you could in 1965 because there's too much information. Everything you do is available all the time. So the only thing you can rely on is not being false.