A biography for Wallace Shawnhasn’t been written yet.
“In my mind, the plays I was writing were extreme examples of art for art's sake. I didn't necessarily think that other people would love them, though I thought they probably would.”
“In terms of number of movies, I've been in an extraordinary amount. If you count only the minutes I'm onscreen, it's not so long.”
“You can go to a play that is enjoyable because it's funny, and then on the next night you can go to a play that's enjoyable because it's 'disturbing.'”
“There's nothing regular about my life at all, really. I don't keep a regular schedule and every day is different. It's all rather chaotic.”
“I never planned to be an actor. It turned out I could make a living doing it.”
“I probably have a higher opinion of my writing than the average person, at least when I'm in a good mood, but I don't really think of my plays as only being relevant to a particular month or year.”
“From being a writer of plays, it was not that surprising that somebody thought of giving me a job as an actor. After I played one part, others came along.”
“'The Fever' is a one-person play. I decided I would perform it myself, and I decided I would not perform it in theaters, because the character in the play says certain things that I meant.”
“I see myself as a citizen of the planet. Even as a child, I always found it mindless to root for your own team. I was puzzled by the fact that people said their own team was better than other teams simply because it was theirs.”
“I never grew up thinking, 'One day I will play so and so' because I wasn't expecting to be an actor at all.”
“Contrary to the popular misconception, the actor is not necessarily a specialist in imitating or portraying what he knows about other people. On the contrary, the actor may simply be a person who's more willing than others to reveal some truths about himself.”
“I am recognized a lot for 'Clueless,' but I am recognized a great deal for 'The Princess Bride.' I don't know... maybe everybody who has seen that movie just goes out on the street.”
“I do things, and other people laugh at them. I rarely know what the joke is supposed to be or why they're laughing.”
“In real life, every person is the leading man or woman. We don't think of ourselves as supporting or character actors.”
“I'm afraid that the passage of time is mostly lost on me. If you were to open up my head you would see that I'm still brooding about statements, songs and issues from the third grade. The years between 1980 and today went by very, very quickly.”
“I don't have a television, and I'm just not too up on television.”
“My plays have been strange from the beginning, and they never got unstrange.”
“I have been vain since birth. I expected other people to like what I did, although my vanity has definitely diminished over the years.”
“You know, I haven't written as much as most other writers. Certainly maybe those who keep a more regular schedule accomplish more.”
“I choose parts because I don't want to be embarrassed when the movie comes out. What if my friends were to see the movie? What if my niece or nephew wandered into the theater and saw the movie? I don't want to be too ashamed of it.”