Peter Riegert

“You have to have an ego to be an actor, but you need an ego just to get through life! Unless you want to sit on a corner and suck your thumb, it takes a healthy ego to get up in the morning and say, 'I deserve to be here.'”

“In 2000, I realized I had reached that certain age when the parts get scarcer. So I decided to try my hand at directing.”

“Setting a movie in an earlier age gives it a mythical quality.”

“Sometimes you make a connection with a writer or a piece of material, and there's not much to ask.”

“Obviously, any time you're closer in terms of what your knowledge is to a character, you can add something. But an actor's job is not to play only people he can identify with.”

“There are movies I've seen or books I've read that attach themselves in a way that's greater than the ability to understand why. How do you explain that kind of connectedness?”

“You rely on a lot of things about learning to play a particular character.”

“A movie is a filmed rehearsal in a way. The audience doesn't know that because you're taking out the things that don't work. There's no comparison to the theater because it's live. But making a movie is just as challenging and exciting, I find. A movie is pure process. The theater is the result of process.”

“There are times when you have to fight for something you believe in, that you love.”

“I apply the three gag rule, which is if I can read a script without gagging more than three times, then maybe I can say yes to this job.”

“We don't think of them as acting, but we take on certain characteristics based on where we function, and those relationships draw out aspects of who we are as people. And that's what acting is. Different parts draw out different parts of your nature.”

“I did 'Animal House' in 1978, then 'Local Hero' in 1983, and then in '88, 'Crossing Delancey.' And I realized that every three to five years, you need a big role to put you into the national psyche.”

“It's a very neurotic time we live in, this postanalytical period where everybody goes to a shrink to solve their problems.”

“When you get older, unless you're a huge star, the parts become less and the competition becomes greater. Because the guys left standing are the best.”

“You realize Shakespeare wasn't stuck for an idea when he said, 'All the world's a stage.'”

“In 1962, the smallest things were upsetting to authority. It wasn't the Civil Rights Movement. It wasn't the Anti-war Movement. It was something else, but it was a harbinger of what was to come.”

“It never occurs to me that acting with a superstar is something to worry about. I figure the bigger the better because more will be demanded of me.”

“I got to learn from the American audience. Hearing what it is they're not getting. These are audiences, 35 to 40, an older demographic that controls seven to 10 trillion dollars. And the producers and distributors have convinced themselves this group doesn't go to the movies.”

“I think when you're younger, as an actor you have much more of a notion that you are doing something to the audience. But with experience, I think you begin to worry less about what the audience's experience is and concentrate on working with the other actors, and that tends to let the audience do more work.”

“I adapted an O. Henry short story called 'By Courier,' which got nominated for a Best Short Subject Oscar.”