Gary Cole

“Christopher Walken could literally read a phone book and fill a theater, and it would be interesting to watch. I've often wanted to produce a show and ask him if he'd do that. All week long, he could read the As on Tuesday, the Bs on Wednesday; we'd see how long it would last.”

“Then, at some point, you get identified with certain things.”

“Whatever's in front of you, you do the best you can and let it land where it lands, and then you walk away.”

“In Washington, there are jobs that have official titles: chief of staff, campaign manager, director of communications. Then there are all these vague and murky headings over people who are just special consultants or advisers. We really don't know what their gig is.”

“I don't think anyone sets out to do something bad, it's just that it's very difficult.”

“I like the fact that this kind of family has been seen in a movie a million times: teenage kids, the family is a bit strained and they don't have enough money, but in the background the guy used to be a Gene Simmons type.”

“If someone comes up to me, 90 percent of the time it's about Office Space.”

“I love going to concerts, so that whole environment is something that intrigues me anyway.”

“'Office Space' I loved doing.”

“When you're in a movie with Will Ferrell, well, it's time to at least sometimes throw the script away. And that character in 'Talladega Nights' I found a lot easier to kind of riff with because I related to it more, those kind of Southern, almost rednecky guys. That's a culture that I'm familiar with, that makes sense for me to spew.”

“I was initially a leading man, but only on television.”

“In 1993, I was working at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.”

“There's only a handful of people who are just purely, inherently funny, and I'm not one of them. I need content and a situation. I don't just walk on the screen, and people go, 'Ha ha ha!' There are people like that, and they can do almost anything. It's the Christopher Walken Rule.”

“It's always appealed to me do to something that is whatever 'steady' means in this business. That's what I've kind of searched for, because, having a family, it's the best situation.”

“I just don't eat too much. That's never been my problem.”

“I think it had something to do with my love of music, especially rock music.”

“Even people who aren't engaged on the actual battlefield - the effects of war reach out like tentacles into families, into economies, into the changing geography, into politics. It shakes up everything.”

“It seems you can ask any friend, any relative, and they'll be able to tell you about someone they know with autism.”

“A lot of actors in my age bracket look at being still standing as pretty good.”

“A lot of times evil - or, in the case of comedy, stupid - is more interesting than the hero.”