Dwayne Johnson Quotes

I don't think you can discriminate against budgets, you know? I'm an actor, I guess, so I'm just trying to play as many characters as I can. If there's a character I think I can play, and they're going to let me do it, I'll do it whether it's $10 or $1 million or more.

As actors, you like to think about the luxury of having choices in your career, but for the most part you kind of take whatever comes your way and hope that you carved out something that you're proud of in the end.

TV kind of worked out naturally for me. I was fortunate to do a show like 'Breaking Bad' and then go straight into something like 'Friday Night Lights.' It's not something I focus on, but when they're great projects, I can't pass them up.

Every couple of years - no, that's every couple of weeks - I think I'm going to give up acting.

Had I done the movies that were offered to me in my prime, at the height of my career, I would have been alongside the likes of Denzel Washington. But, I chose not to do those movies.

I'm very, very lucky to be a working actor, but I've also been careful. I don't just take anything. 'Durham County' came to me. You have to look at the quality of work you do, and 'Durham' set the standard. I wait for things that keep me really interested.

I've been very lucky not to have turned down too many roles that I've later regretted.

I've always basically done everything that's been offered to me. I'm one of the few actors who enjoy working a lot.

Part of progressing in acting is turning down work, and that's hard; it's very, very hard to do. And I think you have to do that so as not to undermine your own sense of value.

There have been films I have said no to and there are roles that I wish I had done.

I've been saying yes to almost every interesting script that comes my way.

I've done shows where I was the lead, but maybe it wasn't quite right - I took them because I wanted to move my career on.

At one point of time, most of my films were successful, so I could have launched a production house. But had I done that, I would not have grown as an actor.

With 'Lady Macbeth,' I had two other things offered to me, and they would have also been very fun, but you just have to figure that out. And then you do it.

My first love is acting, but the reality is that I just don't get too many opportunities to stretch, and grow, and inspire myself as an actor, certainly not in terms of where I make money. Yeah, I can go off and do a play, but the reality is as a profession, directing is exponentially more satisfying.

Right when I started getting solid was when I was offered a lot of writing work. And when The Ben Stiller Show was picked up, I realized there was no way for me to do stand-up three or four nights a week and run this television show with Ben. So that was the moment when I had to make a choice.

The good thing about this Casino Royale thing, that I hope and pray, is that I'll have more opportunities. That roles will come up to me rather than going to the auditions. But I still have a lot of things to prove. I haven't, I think, shown all my talent.

I've been so fortunate throughout my career, when I was doing theater, more theater than anything else, and when I was doing films that I got a chance just to do a broad range of things. In fact, a lot of my choices that I made were about that very thing. Every project that I had an opportunity to do or chose to do, I wanted it to be different from the last thing I did, and I think that's why I have a good, you know, I had kind of a diverse kind of résumé. I'm really - it's what I set out to do as an actor originally.

There are a lot of decisions we pass up on because we think, "You know what? That's just going to build - you know, maybe that's going to build me and not build the ministry and what I'm trying to do." So we pass up on a lot of opportunities.

An actor that tells you that they have real choices between material is, for the most part, lying. There are very few people that have opportunities. But what you do have where I am in my career, is saying no to the things that seem repetitious. For me, I always look for material that allows me to bring my worldview to it. And those opportunities, since the beginning of The Shield, have grown exponentially.

But I remember the morning after The Mask of Virtue-which is the first play I did at the West End-that some critics saw fit to be as foolish as to say that I was a great actress. And I thought, that was a foolish, wicked thing to say, because it put such an onus and such a responsibility onto me, which I simply wasn't able to carry. And it took me years to learn enough to live up to what they said-for those first notices. I find it so stupid. I remember the critic very well, and have never forgiven him.

That's the beauty of being an actress, is that you hopefully get to have different roles and really stretch yourself. This is really what I've been working for a while. I've been in the business for a minute, and it's an opportunity like this that I've been really working towards.

A Marathon is not about running, it is about salvation. We spend so much of our lives doubting ourselves, thinking we're not good enough, not strong enough, not made of the right stuff. The Marathon is an opportunity for redemption. "Opportunity," because the outcome is uncertain. "Opportunity," because it is up to you, and only you, to make it happen; only you can turn your farfetched dream into a reality.

As far as making a living, acting has been much more lucrative. Music's been tough.

I want to work hard, and when good roles come along I don't want to pass them up.