Win The Life

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.— Kurt Vonnegut

 

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them.— Socrates

Acting is a nice childish profession - pretending you`re someone else and at the same time selling yourself.- Katharine Hepburn

 

I knew when I grew up, I always wanted to be a liar, and if you`re in television, you`re lying because you`re just pretending to be yourself much like I`m doing now.- John Ritter

 

(on Kurt Cobain, who quoted the Young song "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" in his suicide note) The fact that he left the lyrics to my song right there with him when he killed himself left a profound feeling on me, but I don`t think he was saying I have to kill myself because I don`t want to fade away. I don`t think he was interpreting the song in a negative way. It`s a song about artistic survival, and I think he had a problem with the fact that he thought he was selling out, and he didn`t know how to stop it. He was forced to do tours when he didn`t want to, forced into all kinds of stuff. I was trying to get a hold of him - because I had heard some of the things he was doing to himself - just to tell him it`s OK not to tour, it`s OK not to do these things, just take control of your life and make your music. Or, hey, don`t make music. But as soon as you feel like you`re out there pretending, you`re fucked. I think he knew that instinctively, but he was young and he didn`t have a lot of self-control. And who knows what other personal things in his life were having a negative impression on him at the time?- Neil Young

 

It`s a misconception about acting that it`s a practice in pretending to be someone else. It`s actually a practice in finding the character within yourself.- Peter Bogdanovich

 

"Pretending to still be the tough man of action isn`t dignified for me any more. There comes a time when you`re over the hill and there are plenty of great looking younger actors who can take your place. The action stars of today are making some wonderful films. There are no `I could do it better` feelings in me. The younger they come, the better they get. That`s why Olympic records are broken." (from a 1987 interview)- Rod Taylor

 

An awful lot of gay pop stars pretend to be straight. I`m going to start a movement of straight pop stars pretending to be gay.- Robbie Williams

 

I got attention by being funny at school, pretending to be retarded, and jumping around with a deformed hand.- Leonardo DiCaprio

 

I always approach comedy roles pretending they aren`t funny.- Brendan Fraser

 

On dealing with the resulting media attention of Empire of the Sun (1987) at age 13: "It was horrific. I was almost crying in interviews and running away during press conferences, pretending I was going to the bathroom and just disappearing.- Christian Bale

 

What is it in us that makes us feel the need to keep pretending... we gotta let ourselves be.- Christina Aguilera

 

There`s something liberating about not pretending. Dare to embarrass yourself. Risk.- Drew Barrymore

 

Some movies you fall a step behind and some you stay in the same place, make the same choices. And then sometimes there are people who know more than you but show you, and that`s the maximum you can hope for - doing that with someone who says, "I like you for what you are, and I want you to be in my picture." I didn`t have to fake it or put on a mask - all the resources I had inside me were more than adequate. I don`t want to pretend to be something ... I`m not pretending any more to fit somebody`s mold. That`s a long-winded statement but - why not do what you really think, even if it`s a mistake?- Jake Gyllenhaal

 

I am one of those guys who could do the most emotional scene and crack a joke instantly. I`m lucky. I`m just like an idiot savant. I have one enormously enjoyable, pleasurable--for me--talent, which is being able to act. I do it without any confusion or restriction or ambivalence or hesitation, and it just flows, almost as naturally as anything in my life. So I don`t have a big burden about it. I`m not one of those `method` guys. I`m tired of the Actors` Studio bullshit that has ruined movies for 40 years. All these guys running around pretending they are turnips or whatever the hell they do. You just play the character as he really is. As a loudmouth, blowhard, coward, shithead. You know, it`s OK to be just who the guy is. One of the reasons that I`m not very good about talking about the process of acting is that so much of it requires you to be unconscious (of it) when you do it. When you`re aware of what you`re doing, it`s never very good. If you just let go and you`re in the scene, all of a sudden, it`s good. I can`t act; I swear to you, I feel like I can`t. I dread it every time I do it. I feel like the more I do it, the less I know. Which is a good thing.- James Woods

 

I love performing and pretending - it`s very easy for me.- Jamie Lee Curtis

 

Now all of a sudden I`m so less interested in pretending to be a lot of other people, and much more interested in being me.- Jamie Lee Curtis

 

A large part of acting is just pretending. You get to work with these other great make-believers, all making believe as hard as they can. What I learned most from my father wasn`t anything he said; it was just the way he behaved. He loved his work so much that, whenever he came on set, he brought that with him, and other people rose to it.- Jeff Bridges

 

I go into movies thinking, we`re performing, but with interviews, we`re pretending to be completely real. I just can`t get my head around it. And the things we say in this hour could permanently shape our personas. I mean, tell me that`s not a little odd! And because I think that`s odd, people think I`m odd. And that`s strange. Know what I`m saying?- Joaquin Phoenix

 

Pretending to be other people is my game and that to me is the essence of the whole business of acting.- John Hurt

 

I still don`t know if I made the right decision when I went into acting. I have driven school buses, sold egg rolls and painted houses, and I have often wondered what my life would have been like if I hadn`t gone into acting. Mind you, it`s a great life, going around pretending you`re other people and getting paid ridiculous sums of money for it.- John Malkovich

 

On a scene from the movie Holy Smoke (1999),: "It was a difficult scene. When I read the script and I saw this scene was there, I laughed hysterically. I just couldn`t believe it. When it came to shooting it, I had been sort of putting it off, and pretending it wasn`t going to happen. And suddenly, I am there naked, peeing and thinking "Oh no!" It was really hard to do, but I`ve always loved the fact that it was there, and it`s such a sort of turning point for the character I play in the movie that I`ve always felt sort of good, that it should be there.- Kate Winslet

 

My Father taught me to weigh my words carefully, and speak up only when I had something insightful to add to the proceedings, or something really funny to say. He also taught me that if I couldn't be that kind of guy in real life, that I could earn a healthy living pretending to be that guy in the movies '“ particularly when paired up with a long haired stoner.- Kevin Smith

 

Being is like pretending.- Mira Sorvino

 

So it wasn`t actually that bad, it took a couple of weeks to sort of get used to uh, you know, standing around and pretending to have ice shoot out of your hand, but once you got used to that it uh, it was actually not that hard.- Shawn Ashmore

 

What was frustrating about Armageddon was the time I spent not doing anything. It was a big special effects film, and I wasn`t crazy about pretending I was in outer space. It feels ridiculous.- Steve Buscemi

 

Acting is pretending that you`re not pretending when you`re actually pretending.- Ted Danson

 

Lots of middle class people are running around pretending to be Cockney.- Christopher Eccleston

 

It`s very simple. There`s only one requirement of any of us, and that is to be courageous. Because courage, as you might know, defines all other human behavior. And, I believe - because I`ve done a little of this myself - pretending to be courageous is just as good as the real thing.- David Letterman

 

I was like, `Oh, my God! Ashlee Simpson`s here!` ... I was freaking out, pretending like I didn`t see her. Then Ashlee Simpson walked right up to me and was like, `L.C., love your show! I watch it every week with my friends!`- Lauren Conrad

 

On preparing for her role in Water (2005): "Deepa gave us all plenty to read about the state of widows, not only in the 1930s but also today. But I also knew I had to something more. I decided to go to India, and look at how the widows lived in rural areas. I even went to Varanasi. I went there pretending to be a tourist. I even had my camera! I went to the widows` homes, went to temples, heard widows sing the Radha-Krishna bhajans, and watched them for hours. I followed their body language. I was adding (from the observations) what I had read about them and from the memory of widows in my own family.- LisaRaye McCoy

 

(On performing naked on-camera) "I`m much more confident in front of a camera, hidden by a character, enhanced by makeup, so I can go much further than I can in real life. Being naked is quite a natural thing, but it`s more the sexual situations. Sexual acting is painful, because even though you`re pretending, you have the skin of the person in front of you, and it`s not the skin you wish you had. After that you run into the shower to get rid of everything. I felt really dirty after I filmed all of this. It is difficult, but even if you`re self-conscious in real life, when you`re hidden behind a character you can bare much more."- Ludivine Sagnier

 

In my mind I`m pretending that Geena Davis is actually running the country because it makes me feel a lot more secure. We all thought of Hillary Clinton when we heard they were making this show. I hope it takes off!- Sara Rue

 

I`m just pretending that this isn`t real. You`ve got to continue living your life, otherwise it`s so expensive! You`ve got to take taxis everywhere!- Sophia Myles

 

On Hollywood: "You`ve got to have a sense of humour about it. There`s a con going on all the time. You can smell it in the air. People are always pretending to be something they`re not in order to make a buck, to become that person they want to be."- Amanda Plummer

 

I started being a songwriter pretending I could do it, and it turned out I could.- James Taylor

 

To work on the actual location I think is great. This thing of going to Canada and pretending you`re in New York, it`s terrible.- Jessica Lange

 

I was not extremely patriotic about Mother Russia. I played their game, pretending. You have to deal with, you know, party people, KGB. Horrifying.- Mikhail Baryshnikov

 

There was no protection against one program pretending to be another just by changing the file name,- René Angelil

 

I found that what happened 150 years ago was happening again with Americans entering other countries and exploiting them but pretending they were doing a favour. It was this contemporary feel that attracted me.- Aamir Khan

 

I don`t think that we necessarily lie. I mean, we make our living by pretending that we`re someone else. I don`t tell tall tales. I always tell the truth.- Albert Finney

 

I`ve never had to turn my hand to anything for monetary gain, other than pretending to be somebody else. I`m deeply fortunate.- Ben Kingsley

 

(on what he would like to do instead of music) I`ve done some producing, that I can do. But acting for me, I`m pretty sure I don`t know how to do that. I really don`t want to go through a process of trying to figure out how to do it. I think as soon as you start acting that realness of you that people love is gone because you`re pretending to be something else on screen.- Billie Joe Armstrong

 

I want a private life, I truly do. I`m not just pretending to want one like lots of celebrities.- Donna Summer

 

This work is never boring. I can go from pretending to live one kind of life to another to another to another. It`s like a big game of dress-up and make-believe. The longer I do this the more fun it gets and the freer I allow myself to be creatively.- Judith Hoag

 

In our day the conventional element in literature is elaborately disguised by a law of copyright pretending that every work of art is an invention distinctive enough to be patented.- Northrop Frye

 

A lot of my audience are in their 50s. But they want me to pretend to continue to be pretending.- Pete Townshend

 

It`s a miracle was the last track recorded for the album, we based it on the rhythm from the middle of `Late Home Tonight, where there`s Graham Broad playing lots and lots of drums with me shouting in the background, pretending to be a mad Arab leader.- Roger Waters

 

(My wife) told me one of the sweetest things one could hear-"I am not jealous. But I am truly sad for all the actresses who embrace you and kiss you while acting, for with them, you are only pretending."- Joseph Cotten

 

There was no protection against one program pretending to be another just by changing the file name,- Julie Davis