Will Ferrell Quotes

I've arrived at the place if I'm not taking a career risk, I'm not happy. If I'm scared, then I know I'm being challenged.

You want roles that challenge you and that scare you a little and where you can really discover something, even about yourself, that maybe you didn't understand.

You have to do what you need to do as an artist. You have to have that courage.

When the first big paycheque with 'Dumb And Dumber' hit, I went: 'Gosh, I wonder if this will affect my performance. Will I do a take and think, was that worth $7 million?' But that never happened. If anything, it made me rebel against that thing when people who get rich start playing it safe.

If I had sat around and waited until I had an idea to be a successful photographer, I would still be in finance.

I can see me continuing to make the best music I can, and let the chips fall where they may.

An artist should be taking risks. That's the whole idea of being an artist.

I choose my work based on what is offered to me. If I see if my role can change the way the show will shape up, I come on board. If me being there in a show will make no difference, then I won't bother being part of it. I am inclined to do things that I haven't done before.

In subsidized theater, you are encouraged to take risks. It's about being imaginative and artistic. That's the priority. It might not be a success, but let's try.

I've always been interested in kind of doing the thing that you weren't necessarily recommended to do.

It's like, if someone asks me to do something and it seems like a really exciting project, but I maybe really frightened about it, nine times out of then I'll say yes imminently because then I can worry after I've said yes!

I still have the mentality of a street musician, because I was one for five years. Every opportunity that comes my way, I feel like, 'Absolutely, let's do this.' Sometimes, it's to my detriment. But I don't think you become successful by not saying yes to opportunities.

I don't know what genre out there that I would be afraid to do. If I am afraid to do it, that's not my cup of tea. It ain't much that's not my cup of tea.

I learned long ago you run unopposed, or you run scared.

If you get asked to play a part that makes you feel frightened, then you have to do it. 'Medea' is the opportunity of a lifetime.

Happy is he who looks only into his work to know if it will succeed, never into the times or the public opinion; and who writes from the love of imparting certain thoughts and not from the necessity of sale - who writes always to the unknown friend.

When I make a movie, I just make the movie. I don't think about the success of it. If it becomes successful, that's an amazing treat. If it doesn't, you had a great time making it and you learned from it, and then you make a new thing.

Don't be afraid to do weird stuff, so long as you do it cheaply and cover everyone's bets. Be bold. Be stupid, if you have to: so long as you don't hurt anybody, what's it matter how dopey your dream is? If I hadn't made TUSK? If I'd let it die as a podcast? I wouldn't have three other movies I'm now making within the span of a year. Some folks will try to shame you for trying something outside the norm; the only shame is in not trying to accomplish your dreams.

As an artist, you don't stop making art because people are not buying it.

The greatest failure is the failure to try.

I wouldn't be doing motherfu**ing films for almost three decades if every time I did something that someone didn't like I went in a fu**ing cocoon and just hid there and didn't make my art.

You cannot achieve success without the risk of failure...You cannot achieve success if you FEAR failure.

My working life is me doing what I want to do. This is that. I've made movies that people don't go to see.

Precocious and eccentric are okay. But I think that people in the arts represent something integral and kind of secretive in everybody else. So the reason people like some artists is because they're saying or doing something that they would like to do or say, but they don't have the balls or the means. People are really afraid to put their ass on the line. Just to put your face on a poster and put your name in big print and say "Come see me," that takes some cojones, you know? Ambition is nothing to be ashamed of.