Stephen Lang Quotes

My criteria for doing theater has always been slightly different than my criteria with movies, in that there are a lot of reasons to do films, having to do with location, money, and first and foremost having to do with script and role and director.

I'm always reading plays, and when I find something that I really want to do, then I'll make the time to do it.

Hamlet, that's the only role there is, finally. The only role. After that, you settle down and only do the fun things on stage.

My advice to actors? To successful actors, it's, "sock it away," and unsuccessful actors, it's just, "Just keep at it. Don't do it unless you have to do it and if you have to do it, keep you've got to keep your instrument in shape. You just got to keep on getting better. If you're not getting better, you're standing still.

You try to go where the great scripts are, if you can, or you go where the not great scripts are, because that's what's being offered to you.

I've been into weight training for many, many years and you add to that a good dose of cardio, don't overindulge, and you can do all right.

I am very happy acting, and just have never gone at, or been bitten by the directing bug to the extent where I'm willing to put acting aside. If offered the opportunity, I think I could do a good job with the right material.

As you get older, stuff starts to wear down. I can't play four basketball games a week anymore. It takes me three days to recover from one. I'm a little older, a little scrappier. So now I do yoga instead. And whatever else happens in the day, I'm set up in the best way possible. I feel great. I'm so flexible.

My job, professionally, is tapping into stuff. We've all got it. But, I just am fortunate enough that, beyond the age of 11, it's what I do professionally.

On some level acting is the art of pretend and you have to have a highly cultivated sense of imagination. You have to be able to see things that aren't there no matter what aspect of acting, whether it's green screen, whether it's on stage, whether it's anything else, whether you're working on the radio.

I don't believe that being against the war can be equated with being non-supportive of our troops.

I've always been curious as to why one man jumps out of a fox-hole with a grenade and charges a machine gun nest and his buddy, who sits right there next to him, sits there cowering. My feeling is that the different is tiny between the two.

My Hamlet was about as alienated as you can get. Mine was a bitter and lonely prince. Valid, I think, but maybe tough to root for. I think that romance was missing.

When Steven Spielberg comes calling, it behooves you to seriously consider it.

I've played the clarinet since I was a kid. I love to sing, but I'm not much of a singer. Let's say that when it comes to vocalizing, I have the soul of Billy Bigelow but the voice of Jigger Cragan.

Your primary tools, as an actor, are observation and imagination. You can pretty much get everything you need from that, and you do. It brings back that element of pretend.

Fortitude, determination... in a way they're things that I idealize myself and am curious about.

I think that war is diplomacy. There have been wars that have been fought for righteous reasons and there are wars that have had to be fought. Indeed, there will continue to be.

I am very fond of the people, landscape, poetry, music, history and the Guinness. Being there makes me think of my mother and my grandmother - always sentimental and warm thoughts.

I don't think there is a role that I did twenty years ago that I couldn't do better now.

What has emerged as I've gotten older is simplifying the characters I play, unless the role calls for something that is arcane or ornate.

There are themes that somehow stir me and that I find very interesting. They're themes that deal with leadership, the nature of bravery and courage, and how to define those.

I loved Laurel and Hardy and TV shows like 'Robin Hood' and 'Rama of the Jungle'.

I like to understand, very specifically, what it is I'm seeing, and where it is and where it's going, and a lot of that is just hitting the mark and following the dotted line. But, that's good too because there's concentration and focus that's involved in that.

I always have a contract with a character. Even when he's unappealing. The contract is to give him his due. To tell his story. And to keep his secrets.

When you want to learn about something, what is the first thing you do... you go to the internet.

Theater, because of the commitment, it has to be a great role and a great play to me. It takes a lot out of you.

You can play anyone if you're open enough. It's a form of possession. Each time you work on something, you allow yourself to be possessed by creating the environment for it. Then you allow the possession to happen - but not at the expense of your sanity or of your identity.

Whether I appear in 'Avatar 2' or 'Avatar 3', I always feel I'm a part of the 'Avatar' team.

In a rehearsal room, your real resource as an actor aren't the things around you; your resources are your imagination and your director and the other actors. In those close quarters, your imagination and your skills are what you turn to.

Acting can be a very reactive profession. Acting is a fantastic thing, and it's my life, but writing is also part of me too, so I did it and in so doing took responsibility for my own life.

I have a penchant for playing God's clowns. Actually, I played Nijinsky once, and he used to call himself God's clown.

Occasionally, I have time to go to the theater, and I think for a minute, 'Man, I'd really love to be doing a play right now.' Because I loved doing plays when I was doing them. Then I think, 'I want to do it right now, but will I want to do that Sunday matinee in six weeks?'

I wouldn't say 'Avatar' changed my life, but it definitely changed my career.

My philosophy is, 'Show up, shut up, and do your job,' and if you do it to the satisfaction of your director and the public, you're likely to be able to do it again.

The idea of being in a television series is a wonderful one to be considered, but you want to make sure it's the right thing for you because if you are fortunate enough to have something go for a long term, you want to make sure that it's something that you really want to be spending a bulk of your time on.

I can't imagine a more profoundly exciting experience than I had working on 'Avatar.' And whether I'm ever part of it again, I'll always be very proud that I was a part of it.

I love scenes that are just emotional give and take. By the same token action sequences are great to do. They have their own unique demands and requirements. So I take it as it comes and hopefully you can get a good balance of all of that stuff.

My favorite show from the '60s was 'Combat.' And maybe 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'

With correction, and given the chance, 'Terra Nova' can and will deliver seasons of transcendent images and story-telling. 'Terra Nova' is the Hubble Telescope of television.

I get a lot of people coming up to me and saying, "I really hate you." And they say it in the nicest possible way and I accept it. It's the people who come up to you and say, "I really liked your character. Man, he was right!" Those are the ones you worry about.

I was relatively buff (before 'Avatar'), because I was working in a tanktop half the time on stage, anyway, but I just went kind of into hyperdrive after that and really worked to beat that old body into shape, to get that carcass where...I didn't want to be looking at it and see anything hanging where it shouldn't be hanging.

I've become more empathetic, and my capacity to understand and be patient - to give people a break - has enlarged over the years.

The truth is, I'm a character guy. That's how I see myself. I always see the role as being far more interesting and important than I am... not all actors approach it that way.

I don't want to, in any way, characterize a race or a people or get accused of racial profiling, but the Irish, as lyrical and romantic as they can be in their poetry, they can be every bit as repressed in their personal relations.

I love the stage. It's terrifying in a way that film and television is not. When you're about to go out, and you're adrenaline just gets out of control, and that can be really daunting.