Ian McShane Quotes

We're so connected, kind of ever-presently, with technology now. People are carrying their phones with them and looking at the screen so much.

I find it personally distracting when kids are constantly texting, but they can be texting something that is just benign and just fine.

Being on the set of 'Super 8' was a very fun and relaxed environment.

I love my BlackBerry, I love my Apple Mac, I love technology.

The moment of drifting into thought has been so clipped by modern technology. Our lives are filled with distraction with smartphones and all the rest. People are so locked into not being present.

Thanks to Twitter, iPads, BlackBerrys, voice-activated in-dash navigation systems, and a hundred other technologies that offer distraction anywhere, anytime, boredom has loosened its grip on us at last - that once-crushing 'weight' has become, for the most part, a memory.

Today's kids aren't taking up arms against their parents; they're too busy texting them.

'Real Steel' was this lovely little piece where I held a cup of coffee and talked to Hugh Jackman for three weeks. And that sounded kind of nice.

The thing about that too is that we had the same extras everyday. It was such a community. It was like a microcosmic little town. We were like all little towns people with extras and a crew.

I had the most fantastic time filming 'Downton.'

What did we do before we had cell phones and we just had to sit there and be vulnerable?

A lot of people come work with me because I keep an open set, and people can visit. Julia Roberts used to have friends visit on 'Pretty Woman.'

I sometimes have dreams that my assistant director is waking me up and trying to get me to the set.

I had an iPhone for a while, I gave that to my grandson. Kids are really caught up in that.

The computers people have are no longer on their desks but in their hands, and that is probably the transformative feature of the technology. These computers are with you, in the world.

As the world continues its love affair with smartphones and tablets, mobile has become so essential to our lives that most people couldn't imagine life without it.

Our attention spans have been reduced by the immediate gratification provided by smartphones and social media.

I think that we get so distracted with our smartphones... It takes your body and your brain time to switch between tasks. If we can focus on what we're doing, we'll be more productive at that task.

We thought our vision was right, which was that someday everyone would be walking around carrying phones with them.

I carry both a Blackberry and an iPhone. But for my job, the iPhone is essential because of picture-taking and because of picture sharing.

Usually on a film set it's making sure that everyone is there for their scene, and the moment their scene is over they disappear.

There's a lot of phones; but I'm out of that field. They make me feel like a prisoner of war; there's not going to be any texting for me. The pre-paid phone is the frontier of my technological advance.

The difference between smartphones and cigarettes is this: a cigarette robs 10 minutes from your lifespan, but at least has the decency to wait and withdraw all that time in bulk as you near the end of your life - whereas a smartphone steals your time in the present moment, by degrees. Five minutes here. Five minutes there. Then you look up and you're 85 years old.

When I was a chain smoker, I used to wake up and the first thing I'd do was reach for a cigarette, basically. And now I do the same thing for a smartphone, basically.

Of course smartphones are brilliant inventions, but the nefarious thing about Twitter and other social media is that it starts to fill all the gaps in your day. I quickly become an addict.