Paul Newman (1925 – 2008)
American actor and film director.
I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking.
To that extent that you can sustain and maintain that childlike part of your personality is probably the best part of acting.
You can't be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: "Holy Christ, whaddya know — I'm still around!" It's absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.
I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.
Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.
I've repeatedly said that for people as little in common as Joanne and myself, we have an uncommonly good marriage. We are actors, we make pictures — and that's about all we have in common. Maybe that's enough. Wives shouldn't feel obligated to accompany their husbands to a ball game, husbands do look a bit silly attending morning coffee breaks with the neighbourhood wives when most men are out at work. Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends — and not impose one upon the other.
People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked.
I was terrorized by the emotional requirements of being an actor. Acting is like letting your pants down; you're exposed.
A man with no enemies is a man with no character.
I've been accused of being aloof. I'm not. I'm just wary.
Paul likes to test himself. That's what makes Paul run. He's got a lot of courage, a highly underrated element in people's lives these days.
I wasn't driven to acting by any inner compulsion. I was running away from the sporting goods business.
Men experience many passions in a lifetime. One passion drives away the one before it.
I don't like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?
He is the most private man I've ever known. He has a moat and a drawbridge which he lets down only occasionally.
Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experiences.
The first time I remember women reacting to me was when we were filming Hud in Texas. Women were literally trying to climb through the transoms at the motel where I stayed. At first, it's flattering to the ego. At first. Then you realize that they're mixing me up with the roles I play — characters created by writers who have nothing to do with who I am.