Thomas Jane

“To me, it's the kiss of death when you start winking at the audience as an actor. I just never liked it. I don't like it when we do monologues, looking into the character.”

“To stand there and do nothing on film is probably the hardest thing to do.”

“I think all good drama is funny. All the best drama is ultimately very funny. Life is funny. You can't have any honest treatise on life without bumping into some humor.”

“Great directors turn in mediocre work, and first-time directors turn in exceptional work. No matter how good a person can talk about what he wants, you never know. You just have to go with a good story and a script that you like and people that you like to work with.”

“Conformity is painful. You know, it's too tight. Conformity leads to rebellion. So a desire for happiness is in direct conflict with a desire for freedom.”

“It's not that the film is violent, it's that people have an issue with violence right now.”

“No, real men don't watch 'Deuce Bigelow.'”

“I'm interested in people that don't always do the right thing, its much more akin to what I know about life.”

“You want to please society. You want to be happy. You want to be well liked. You want to be held in high esteem and be respected. These are real things. You want respect from your peers, respect from your loved ones; you want to be looked up to for your achievements and your accomplishments. All of this requires conformity in some form or another.”

“I can't stand to see myself act. It just makes me cringe.”

“Some of the supporting roles that I've done as an actor, I took them because I knew that I would get to watch some of the leading guys in the movies, and also I'd get to work with them.”

“That's the great part about television: It's alive, and it changes and evolves with the way the characters evolve. Stuff that happens to you in your life when you're shooting a TV show, you have to be careful, because it might end up in the show.”

“I'll tell you what - it's not a choice until you're open enough to experience both male and female sexuality. Until you've tasted the food, you don't know whether you'll like it or not, as my mom always said.”

“Terry Malick offered me three parts in 'The Thin Red Line.' I was busy shooting other movies while he asked me the first two.”

“America is immature as a nation, and part of the reason why 'Hung' is a hit show is because it deals with that immature side of the male brain where we are kind of comparing ourselves to the rest of the world.”

“I still collect comics. I still have a great love and respect for the genre.”

“It would be a sign of society changing if we did finally legalize prostitution. Once it's legal, it doesn't mean your daughter's going to run out and be a ho. The more we sort of bring these things into the light, you bring these hidden vices into the light, the less power they have over our society. You make it legal, it tends to go away.”

“Sharing the same vision for what's on the page is always a good idea. The director's job is to establish what that is and make sure that everyone sticks to it when it comes down to actually executing it. Establishing what the vision is and being able to stick to it is the job, and everyone should be on the same page going in.”

“If I stay alert, then I can challenge myself, and by challenging myself, that helps me to stay alive and to hopefully take something away from the experience.”

“I spent a lot of years just learning my craft and falling down in front of the camera.”