The rehearsal is where it all happens for an actor.

There is a big cry in California to stop everyone from running to Canada.

I love to be in the position of not knowing what I'm gonna do, but having rehearsed all of those so when something happens with the others actors I go with whatever that is I'm getting.

Villains never know they are villains in a picture so I play this like I'm the nicest guy in the world.

Everybody thinks about Bo Derek as being this extravagant looking lady but she is also a wonderful actress.

Those differences are what color the performance, but in the movies you don't get a chance to rehearse.

Yes, I loved MASH. As we are sitting here now talking, it's playing somewhere in the world.

When your in the movie business you have a start date and a stop date.

The rehearsal is where it all happens for an actor.

People in Hollywood are going make pictures where ever it's the least expensive to make them.

You're in the public eye and you just hope that people don't come up and interrupt you while your in the middle of a meal or a conversation or something like that.

I'm one of those actors who likes to do it wrong nine ways before I come to the tenth way, which is the way I think it should be.

Acting is doing. It's not speaking; it's behavior. It's something happening, even if you're only listening.

I believe it's easier to be an actor. Somehow, interviewing seems to be intrusive on people's lives.

I have always been interested in theater, as an actor and as someone who looks upon theater - at the risk of sounding pretentious - as an icon by which we measure society... My life has been in the theater to an extent. It's only an extension to write, direct, produce, whatever.

I like to create a nice environment and let people reveal themselves instead of trying to trick them or surprise them with a hidden question.

I may have a slightly paranoid nature, a fear of losing control of my life.

I'd heard stories about business managers who lost their client's money. My feeling was that if I made any money, I wanted to lose it myself, to be the author of my own demise.

I'm not hiding anything. What you see is what you get.

I'm not saying I'm a paragon of virtue, but it's hard for me not to be honorable.

If you are an entrepreneur, you have to think outside of the box.

Look first at management. That's the key to a company.

Somebody once told me I shouldn't try to change Hollywood. That isn't my point at all. I don't want Hollywood to change me.

The best government is the least government. In some areas, I'm libertarian. I don't subscribe to any one party; they are all bad.

There is no fun in getting into a debate or a contest of wills. If something important comes out of the conversation, okay. If not, that's okay, too.

We own a shopping center in Temecula that is occupied and making money. In Florida, I am doing a 500-home subdivision just north of Eglin Air Force Base.

You can't change the market; the market just is.

You trivialize the idea of competition totally, then there's no point in having the competition in the first place, and everybody is getting a trophy.

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.

And once you cease to be a real person, you stop being a good actor.

When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I said I wanted to work with quality actors and directors.

There are roles I want that my agency might not want me to do because of the subject matter or whatever. Or there are roles that people won't bring to me because they don't think I'll do it. And that is a big strain because an actor wants to act.

Reality is, I'm an actor and an entertainer, and I really wouldn't know what to do with another profession.

I still feel like I'm trying to make it. It's hard to shed the struggling actor thing.

Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.