As a filmmaker you get typecast just as much as an actor does, so I'm trapped in a genre that I love, but I'm trapped in it!

The guy that made me wanna make movies... and this is off the wall-is a guy named Michael Pal, the British director.

The most realistic blood I've seen is when Marlon Brando gets beat up in On The Waterfront.

I thought Godzilla was a mess, the monster had no character and the humans didn't either. They forgot to make the movie that went along with all these wonderful effects.

As great as Ed is, the wisdom out here is that he can't carry a movie. They'll pay him $3 million to be the second banana in Julia Roberts things. But they won't put up $3 million for an Ed Harris movie.

There are so many factors when you think of your own films. You think of the people you worked on it with, and somehow forget the movie. You can't forgive the movie for a long time. It takes a few years to look at it with any objectivity and forgive its flaws.

If I fail, the film industry writes me off as another statistic. If I succeed, they pay me a million bucks to fly out to Hollywood and fart.

As a filmmaker you get typecast just as much as an actor does, so I'm trapped in a genre that I love, but I'm trapped in it!

I really believe that you could do horror very inexpensively. I don't think it has anything to do with the effects, the effects are not the most important parts.

I like guys who are understandable and good guys who are flawed.

I also have always liked the monster within idea. I like the zombies being us. Zombies are the blue-collar monsters.

I think you're only free if you're working on very low or huge money.

If one horror film hits, everyone says, 'Let's go make a horror film.' It's the genre that never dies.

A zombie film is not fun without a bunch of stupid people running around and observing how they fail to handle the situation.

Ever since 'Lassie' and 'Old Yeller', I won't watch animal movies. Animals in movies always die.

For a Catholic kid in parochial school, the only way to survive the beatings - by classmates, not the nuns - was to be the funny guy.

Horror will always be there, it always comes back, it's a familiar genre that some people, not everyone - it's sort of the cinema anchovies. You either like it or you don't.

I always thought of the zombies as being about revolution, one generation consuming the next.

I can't really make fun of zombies. They're not liars. They're not cheats.

I don't think you need to spend $40 million to be creepy. The best horror films are the ones that are much less endowed.

I expect a zombie to show up on 'Sesame Street' soon, teaching kids to count.

I go to conventions and universities and talk to young filmmakers and everybody's making a zombie movie! It's because it's easy to get the neighbors to come out, put some ketchup on them.

I grew up on the old EC comic books before the Comics Code in North American and with all sort of good-natured fun. I never had nightmares I think because all of the old horror stuff that I was exposed to was well meaning in a certain sense.

I keep a little notebook of things that I can do to the zombies that might be silly and fun.

I really liked the helicopter pilot in 'Dawn of the Dead', when he gets bitten and comes out of the elevator. That guy was amazing. He did this incredible walk that we didn't even know about until we started shooting.

I sympathize with the zombies and am not even sure they are villains. To me they are this earth-changing thing. God or the devil changed the rules, and dead people are not staying dead.

I'll never get sick of zombies. I just get sick of producers.

My stories are about humans and how they react, or fail to react, or react stupidly. I'm pointing the finger at us, not at the zombies. I try to respect and sympathize with the zombies as much as possible.

My zombies will never take over the world because I need the humans. The humans are the ones I dislike the most, and they're where the trouble really lies.

On the other side of that coin, and far outweighing it, is the fact that I've been able to use genre of Fantasy/Horror and express my opinion, talk a little about society, do a little bit of satire and that's been great, man. A lot of people don't have that platform.

People called '28 Days' and '28 Weeks' zombie movies, and they're not! It's some sort of virus; they're not dead.

When I was old enough to go to movies alone, I got to see 'Frankenstein' and 'Dracula' on the big screen. I just fell in love with them.

Zombies are always moving fast in video games. It makes sense if you think about it. Those games are all about hand-eye coordination and how quickly can you get them before they get you.

The zombie was just an intriguing character; it is a sympathetic character.

My favorite actor is Wallace Beery.

I've been a very lucky actor.

I don't think I could be happy as an actor if there was a tyrant on the set.

When I was starting to get noticed as an actor in the 1970s for something other than the third cowboy on the right who ended up dying in every movie or episode, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world.

Most parts that can be played by one actor can equally well be played by another, but not this.

I think, frankly, that I'm a better director than I was an actor.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

I never dreamed about being an actor, because that was out of reach. Coming from a small town that was big in farming, and also big in clothing factories, you don't dream about being a professional football player or an actor.

My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theater, I am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an exhibitionist.

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.