Joe Don Baker

“I wanted to play Babe Ruth.”

“When I made 'Power,' I found It to be the toughest show I've ever done. It was just work and sleep. I tried to keep a social life going the first few weeks of production, but I got awfully tired.”

“I just hope that I don't get typecast a a cowboy. If I wanted to rid the range all the time, I could have stayed in Texas.”

“The British don't have a lot of flashy special effects, nor do they pay a lot, but they sure make up for it in the time and care they put into their projects.”

“It's safe to typecast 'Put a gun in his hand Give him a cop uniform' Or stick him in and make him the bad guy. So you do that and you do the best you can as well as you can 'cause you want to be hired again. They like it so they hire you again.”

“In Hollywood, they've chased away all the good writers.”

“I used to play the bad guy who went around beating heads. Now I play the good guy who goes around beating heads.”

“I can't knock playing cops, because it pays the bills, but I'm tired of only being considered as a cop.”

“Once, I was on unemployment for five months. I was afraid to go out and audition, so I holed up and read everything I could get my hands on.”

“To be an actor, you have to love it and want it.”

“I don't make trouble on sets. I think directors like me, so they hire me, but they have to fight for me.”

“Hollywood only recognizes big successes and big failures.”

“Corporations in America are like the royalty in England once was. They're running the whole damn thing. And the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.”

“I didn't study acting all those years in New York to be typecast.”

“The greatest thing for your career is a well publicized flop. You can work for five years on that. If you've got four or five failures in a row, you've got a track record.”

“The total cost for 'Edge of Darkness' was something like $2.3 million which is actually quite a bit by British standards yet, we still managed to shoot some scenes eight or 10 times, because the director wanted at least three good takes of each scene so he'd have some options.”

“Hell no, I'm not interested in becoming the new John Wayne.”

“I never really wanted to do a TV series, because I knew from guest star work that it always involved long days and tough hours.”

“The thing that inspired me to become an actor was to work on stage three hours a night in a play, sleep late, and meet a lot of interesting people.”

“They don't like to take chances in Hollywood.”