Campbell Scott

To me, it's just like, if you have talent, and you're lucky enough to find where you fit, and you work with the right people, it's not exalted at all.

Television and cable have become the new independent films, in a sense, for writers and actors to gravitate towards. That's why I like short films, too; I love doing readings, audio books, working with young filmmakers; anything that keeps you from getting blase about yourself or in a rut.

I worked with Lukas Haas a long time ago, when he was younger, and he was wonderful.

Actors are conditioned to develop a system for expressing as much as they can in the shortest amount of time because you're going to get all cut up in a movie.

If you're playing a good guy, you show some darkness. If you're playing a dark guy, you show something different, like humor, that will mix it up and hopefully surpass the audience's expectations. What I'm battling all the time is complacency in the audience. I try to bring a little mystery to what might happen because that engages people more.

After I directed, when I went back to being an actor, I was like, 'God, this is the life!' Because you only have to concentrate on one thing.

I love that I'm rarely recognized. I like it because I know I can look different from film to film.

When you produce and direct, your movies are different to you. They're not just something you act in.

When you're young, you don't care about your parents and what they're doing. But then you get to your 20s, and you start watching their movies. And then you become an actor, as I did late in college, and then you're really watching them. And they were really very good.

Actors aren't all the same. They have very different skills. There are actors of intellect who are very thoughtful about everything they do... and then there are actors of instinct who don't know what they're doing until the cameras roll... My father was actually quite thoughtful about what he did, while my mother was much more instinctual.

I'm not always angry. In fact, I think I usually go out of my way to try to find roles that don't seem to be like me.

Think of the difference between a team sport and one that you do by yourself. Like it or not, if you're by yourself, you're going to be faced with a lot more of your own doubts and your own drawbacks and your own whatever.

I hate to tell you this, but there's an entire subset of people out there who think of me as quite a dull actor. And that's the word used, and often - dull.

I just got sick of not being able to raise money for a movie - that's what happens, so I just made my own.

The nightmare of a film career, or at least the challenge of one, is that you're rarely going to get the opportunity to explore character because once people see you in one thing, you know, they want to see that again.

Details are the only thing that separates one movie from another.

In the film world, and I know this from just talking to other people, that I'm known as a kind of dramatic, serious, almost humorless actor, and the fact is I'm a funny guy, and I spend most of my life trying to find a lighter side of things and on stage was given plenty of opportunity to do that.

Movies, I don't really get the bad guys. In theater, I get more bad guys. Both audiences and directors are more willing... to allow people to stretch. In movies, you do one thing, and then that's their reference.

I always consider Shakespeare like a huge room. I mean, you open the door, and you can go anywhere.

As you get older, I think everyone feels that, no matter what the job: to try a hand at running the business as opposed to simply being an employee.

'Breakfast at Tiffany's' isn't a great movie because Audrey Hepburn is brilliant and everyone else isn't. It's a great movie because everybody is fascinating, and she is at the center of it being amazing.

You can't, no matter what anyone says, build a movie around someone.

Shakespeare is rich and beautiful, and it can be an amazing experience to read and to watch and to work on.

Practically, I am interested in television because it keeps me home and it's fast, and I exist in independent films mostly, and you don't get paid for those, or you don't get paid enough.

Most of us... are simply just trying to get through the day. And wait for those times in their life that are markers, that put things into relief. That's why we like movies and books so much.