Armand Assante

I don't champion the idea of being in a Hollywood movie. I never had fun in one of them.

My dream as a youngster was to be like Olivier. To be a great stage actor. To be a great Shakespearean actor. To me that is the Olympics of acting.

Literature is air, and I'm suffocating in mediocrity.

I've worked for 27 years nonstop in theater and films. That's a lot of work.

I've got the best deal on Earth. Where else can I sin and know that I'm forgiven for it?

I live a very quiet life, although I'm very urban and a diehard New Yorker.

It's a blessing and a curse. But it's not always the best situation to be in. As a profession, I don't recommend acting at all.

I do not want to act unless I have a a great intimacy with the people I'm working with.

Acting is a total physical, emotional sensation.

I stopped courting Hollywood a long time ago.

The whole industry is so screwed up by economics. It's disgusting to me.

I never pursued a career relentlessly.

I go out there and make a fool of myself. It's inevitable.

You love what you do, you are cursed with it, and then you get known for being cursed with it.

Maybe you don't work for seven months a year, but you'll work again. It may be a piece of garbage, so you wear hip boots.

The Italian gangster thing has become a form of the modern-day Western.

I've brought my daughters all over the world-they travel with me. I drag them out of school just to keep the relationship. When I'm home I'm a big-time daddy.

I never pursued Hollywood banging my drum, because I was never in a film big enough to do that.