Spike Jonze Quotes

It's much harder to play beloved than to play a rotten guy. Rotten guy is a piece of cake. So playing a beloved person really sets a high bar for your behavior and your acting and what you project.

Film and television are so piecemeal. You do one scene, and then you put it to bed, and then you do a scene that comes before. In a play, you have to go from beginning to end every night, and that's harder, but also more fulfilling in a way.

Everybody who's played Marilyn Monroe before has gone down in flames. It's impossible to capture Marilyn Monroe.

I was so inspired by Beverly Cleary's funny and wonderful books.

I guess when you're carrying a film, you feel the weight of that because you're there every day, and you feel the weight of your character that way.

I have three kids, so children's literature is a big part of my life.

Oh, 'Wild Things.' I haven't seen it since it came out! But you know, it was a fun romp. We had a really good time.

Obviously, as an actor, when you re playing a real person, it is an extra challenge.

It's easy to play a character who is suffering with a disease or has a psychological problem. 'Gentleman' is completely opposite. There are both positives and negatives in the role, and it is the most challenging role I have done so far.

I've always remembered 'Where the Wild Things Are' so clearly, which isn't the case with most other children's books. 'Wild Things' was a favorite from the start.

Honestly speaking, it's not easy to reprise someone else's role.

It's nice to sort of walk in and at least create the illusion that you are, or your character is, a well-rounded human being, a complete person. Especially when you're playing these impressive, high-functioning professionals. You feel like you have to come in sort of guns blazing.

I loved everything about being ten, eleven, and twelve years old, and seem to make most of my heroines and heroes that age so I can reexperience all those pitfalls and wonderful discoveries. It helps me to figure out my own life when I write from that eleven year old place!

It was like my part-time job as a kid to be an adventurer... in my head. I used to sword-fight in the garden and in the park - with my Nan, of all people, with my Nan who can barely walk! I used to make her run around, and I'd go around destroying these trees and cones and stuff.

'The Chronicles of Narnia' books are great.

'Peter Pan' makes 'Black Watch' and 'The Bacchae' look like a walk in the park.

It was a tricky part to play, because Herriot is both a fictional character and a real person.

'Freaky Ali' may look like an easy role to others, but it is not easy.

I think acting is the most difficult one among all the performing arts.

My great influence has been Maurice Sendak, who drew 'Where the Wild Things Are.' His characters really interact with each other.

All my life I've wanted to be the kid who gets to cross over into the magical kingdom.

I think [kids] enjoy reading, but it's a different world now. There are a lot of competitors for the imaginative attention.

It's like being a little kid again, parading around in a nightgown tucked into your underpants, believing it looks terrific.

Children's books aren't textbooks. Their primary purpose isn't supposed to be "Pick this up and it will teach you this." It's not how literature should be. You probably do learn something from every book you pick up, but it might be simply how to laugh.

Realism is a very sophisticated form of literature, a very grown-up one. And that may be its weakness. But fantasy seems to be eternal and omnipresent and always attractive to kids.