John Larroquette Quotes

There's a few movies I wanted to do, and I didn't get to do them partly because they wanted me to be part of the horse and pony show, getting the money, and I'm just not doing that. There's a few movies that people wanted me to do, but they were too safe.

I feel that I can't do certain things that have sent to me, scripts, because I think that really - I've been June Cleaver for so many years, because we went back, you know, and we did - 20-year hiatus we had - and we went back and made 105 new ones. And so I really feel very strongly that there are certain things I won't do.

I think if actors are successful at one thing, they paint themselves into a corner sometimes, and what's the fun in that?

In Bombay, people usually tend to cast you in roles that you've played before. Even though they may consider you to be a talented actor, they just think it's 'safer' to have you play the same kind of roles over and over again.

Well if somebody's giving me a script, I'll consider it. But it's not something I'm chasing.

The more established you are, the less likely you are to do something ridiculous, which is one reason I'm proud to put out a wrestling album. If you stop and you go, 'Well, what if people don't like it?,' if you're already established in what you do, that'll strike fear into your heart.

A lot of people don't want to make their own decisions. They're too scared. It's much easier to be told what to do.

I've been fortunate that I can be selective enough to do acting when it's really furthering what I want to do with my life.

There's just a feeling, when you're just an actor - I have great admiration for people who are just actors. I don't understand it, the idea of waiting to get cast, being at the whim of others. I find it incredibly powerless and frightening, so that's why I've been constantly trying to create my own content.

I will say that I've been lucky enough never to have to do a job I didn't want to do, or a play I wasn't in love with.

It would have shown people that I was prepared to do that kind of work, although I find myself in a position now where I don't really need to and I could pick and choose the kind of characters I'd like to do.

It would be easy to blame Hollywood to say that I was typed and forced to play the same role over and over. For a while, I did. But the truth is that I knew what I was doing. I was enjoying myself. I was making money.

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.

I mean, I would have loved to have kept on being a big television star. If that's the way things would have broke, I would have loved to have done that. I just didn't really want to continue and be someone who took whatever was offered.

A lot of guys spend their lives saying no because it's an easier way to keep your job.

'Salaryitis' is when you become so accustomed to that salary that you no longer have the gumption to pull out of the rut and strike out on your own. It destroys the nerve of ambitious, imaginative men, and bowing to it has meant sure defeat for more people than any other sickness, mental or physical.

I don't think one should attribute the success and failure of a film to a single actor. When you decide to do a film, you weigh the pros and cons before taking a call. Only when you run out of patience, get insecure, and feel your career is heading nowhere do you sign anything that comes your way.

I want to make big movies - but I don't want to have to die a little death every single time I do. Until I meet the people or the studio or the business people who will let me do things a little bit more the way that I need to do them, I probably shouldn't be making big studio movies.

I was scared of failing, and I was scared of succeeding. I just wanted to be in a safe space and not grow too big or be too little.

I don't want to do material that I don't like. I've always stuck to that policy. If that means being out of work for awhile, that's fine with me.

As an actor, you always feel like you're not going to work again. You're always unsure about how things are going to work out, and you start thinking you're going to just fade off into the distance.

Some of us are timid. We think we have something to lose so we don't try for that next hill.

Uncertainty and the prospect of failure can be very scary noises in the shadows. Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

Sometimes people think of actors as marionettes - everybody else makes the decisions for us - and, you know, really, making this decision [of which roles to take] is the only thing you lay claim to.

I used to get the feeling, and sometimes I still get it, that I was fooling somebody - I don't know who or what - maybe myself. I have feelings some days where there are scenes with a lot of responsibility, and I'll wish, 'Gee, if only I had been a cleaning woman.'