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Tommy Lee Jones [1946-0] American

Rank: 101
Actor

Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive.
His other notable starring roles include former Texas Ranger Woodrow F.

Humor, Future, Patriotism

Quote	Tags	Rank
I don't get it. If you're saying, Tommy Lee, you don't fit the image of the East Coast, social elitist wealthy people who comprise Harvard, the only thing I can say is you have no idea what comprises Harvard.		101
My idea in terms of managing a narrative, or in thinking in my creative life, is that you could easily argue that the past, the present and the future all occur simultaneously, and if you can postulate that, then you're not strictly bound to a linear narrative.	Future	102
I always told my children when they whined... Only the boring are bored.		103
I don't do anything that is not fun. I just don't do it.		104
The world's not a very comfortable place if you have a nightmare to face.		105
Kindness and politeness are not overrated at all. They're underused.		106
Cormac McCarthy's language is perfect. He is in my view the greatest living American prose stylist.		107
Characters with no integrity are just as interesting as characters with lots of integrity.		108
Ethnic stereotypes are boring and stressful and sometimes criminal. It's just not a good way to think. It's non-thinking. It's stupid and destructive.		109
I think that no matter how much you don't like yourself or the drama of your life you can still find some comedy in it.		110
As a child of West Texas, I identify with Hispanic culture every bit as much as I do North American culture.		111
If military movies were automatically successful we'd make nothing but military movies. But seriously, patriotism is one thing that all Americans have in common.	Patriotism	112
I have nothing against interviews. I don't pursue them. When people I work for deem it appropriate, I'm perfectly willing to serve.		113
I know a lot of cowboys and I've done a little work on ranches with cattle, and those people become your friends, and keep their word.		114
No director wants to be directed, but no good director... would shy away from the good ideas of others.		115
My home town is very small and very remote and we don't have a movie house.		116
The most important question in American cinema, I've learned, is 'When is lunch?'		117
Normal people with normal problems can be hilarious.		118
I'm a believer in belief. Faith is something that works - it causes people to do things, it has results. It's an intangible, indefinable, very real thing. And it moves people, sometimes to atrocity. And sometimes to survival.		119
Acting is fun for me and it doesn't really matter how, whether it's hard work or easy work, it's always fun.		120
I don't fight anybody anytime or anywhere.		121
I look upon pride as a sin.		122
I don't play just villains. I like to have parts that are not simply villains.		123
What appeals to me? There are things, points of view, uses of the language, habits of dress, ways of thought and believing that came to me from my grandparents and came to them from theirs. Things that are of good use in any situation, no matter what the future may hold.		124
Human beings are glorious and preposterous characters.		125
As an actor to watch an audience of people howl together in a single mind as a result of work you've done together with friends is a privilege.		126
I want to photograph what I see and put it in a dramatic context. I'm an actor and a writer, and I want to tell these stories and present these shapes, colors and movements as I see them, as I see them serve a narrative. As I see that narrative serve an audience. That's what I want to do.		201
I love cinema.		202
You can't instruct an audience to laugh, but what you can do is read well and understand the spirit and subtleties, if there are any, in the dialogue.		203
I have worked on very good movies that have been buried, and I've worked on some resounding mediocrities that have been paraded through the marketplace like they were masterpieces.		204
I don't analyze things like titles.		205
I personally don't live a nihilistic life, I don't have any use for it.		206
I'm a hedonist.		207
Partnerships are good engines for narrative.		208
I've never really known what glamour is.		209
The tactic of leading people into... a war that doesn't make any sense by telling them they are under attack, and if they raise any objection they're unpatriotic, is a very old tactic. And it doesn't intimidate me.		210
In the political world, the only position I have is voter. I'm not a spokesman for anything.		211
If you want to know about my politics, the only way to do that is to look at my work.		212
I think any stereotyping is too much.		213
I'm always happy to have a job.		214
I haven't had a lot of comedy come my way as a performer.		215
I haven't a clue if there is life on other planets but I'd be charmed if we found a unicellular organism on Mars. It would change our whole concept of life on Earth.		216
I don't direct movies for a living.		217
No, I don't think about the myth of the West. It's not the kind of thinking I do. That's more suited to people who live in big towns on the West Coast or East Coast, people who stay under a roof, in a room, all the time.		218
It's no fun to be a struggling young actor. It's a desperate thing, no way to be happy. If you have any alternative, you should take it.		219
I don't think I would describe my sense of humor. Doesn't sound like the kind of thing I'd do.	Humor	220
I've made some bad movies. And I really enjoyed it!		221
I enjoy acting more and more than when I was 17.		222
If you don't hurt anybody or try to steal anything, you'll be fine in the South.		223
I fear other actors who are not prepared. And I fear directors who are afraid.		224
You know, I don't really think you have to play nice guys.		225
I want to make movies about my country from my point of view.		226
All my life I've had the privilege to make my living with my imagination, and the most important thing has been to see my creative life grow. I was educated to do that and have lived accordingly.		301
As an actor I want to do as many takes as I can. I wanna shoot the scene... or shoot the shot 'til they make me quit.		302
It's no mean calling to bring fun into the afternoons of large numbers of people. That, too, is part of my job, and I'm happy to serve when called on.		303
I do not have a sense of humor of any recognizable sort.	Humor	304
I've worked with more than 50 directors ,and I've paid attention since day one. That's pretty much been my education, apart from studying art history and shooting with my own cameras. I've seen 50 different sets of mistakes and 50 different ways of achieving. You just leave the bad part out.		305
The quality of one's emotional life changes over the years, doesn't it? But the basic instincts and desires, greed and hope, seem to remain constant. In the larger scope of things, there's a sense of fulfillment to living a creative life. So I guess that's what keeps me going.		306
I'm kind of pleased with myself that I've got a tailor on Savile Row. I'm 68 years old. I deserve it.		307
I think any thinking person should be worried about climate change.		308
I probably watch less than one hour of television a week. And when I do watch television, it's usually a football game. Sometimes I'll watch a news broadcast for a few minutes. Otherwise, I don't have time.		309
In the course of American history, great steps are taken by ordinary people, and ordinary people are not perfect.		310
I don't have a favorite genre. I think 'genre' is a literary term. I don't have a favorite kind or type of movie. I like the ones that are good.		311
If you look at how people use the term 'western,' you can only conclude that it means a movie that has big hats and horses. And if you really want to sound like you've been thinking, then you'll use a term like 'genre.' But all the hell it seems to mean is big hats and horses. Which is not all that deeply analytical.		312
As it turns out, my grandmother, my mother, my wife, and my daughter are all women, and I like those people. I'm concerned about the issues that they face in their lives. So I'm a feminist, but that's not all I am.		313
My grandmother grew up in a 19th-century world, and my daughter has grown up in a 21st-century world, and some issues, problems, dilemmas that these women face have not changed.		314
You are going to grow up whether you want to or not. It requires no effort.		315
I felt like the luckiest kid in the world because God had put me on the ground in Texas. I actually felt sorry for those poor little kids that had to be born in Oklahoma or England or some place. I knew I was living in the best place in the world.		316
I still think probably the only thing I'm suited for is being a boy from Texas.		317
Al Gore has been one of my closest friends since the day we met, on the first day of college, 35 years ago.		318
I play characters, and I try to play them in a manner that's appropriate to the script. Physical movement and vitality of language is part of character.		319
I don't need much of a character in my life. I've already got one; my family knows who I am, and I don't have a reason to make an impression on the world around me unless it's in a professional context. Acting is not a personal experience; it's a job.		320
How do you play someone in a movie? How do you do that? It's impossible - unless you know how. How do you cut somebody open and take out their appendix and sew them back up and watch them get well? That's impossible - unless you know how.		321
Football was a wonderful experience for me. It was a means of, oh, I don't know, sustaining for much of my youth. In times of trouble, I've always had football. I always knew I was a football player. And that was a comfort on many occasions.		322
You should never ask a horse or an actor to do something they cannot do. Wisdom will teach you to find out what they can do and then make it easy for them.		323
I'm an introspective guy when there's money in it.		324
The entire elementary school in Rotan, Texas, presented a theatrical production of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.' And the part of Sneezy fell to me.		325
It's important for me as an actor to know the entire script before you start shooting, and especially if you're directing, you don't want to be struggling with anything.		326
There's an undeniable tradition of sexism in this country that ties into the move westward by people of European descent and different ways of looking at Manifest Destiny on the west side of the Mississippi River.		401
I like to make movies on the west side of the Mississippi River, and a lot of times, the movies I direct have horses and big hats in them and get called westerns, but that's okay. I used to resent that, but I don't anymore.		402
I try to be as good a director as I possibly can. I try to be prepared, and I hope everyone else is. The preparation, I suppose, means just about everything. Little things mean a lot.		403
I've worked in the film business for 45 years, and I want to keep on growing as a filmmaker. I want to see my visual life grow and be increasingly effective in this world.		404
My education as a filmmaker has been entirely practical. I started working professionally in the film business in 1970, and I've been at it steadily since, and I pay a lot of attention.		405
I've worked with some very good directors and some very bad ones. I learned a great deal from both. From the bad, untalented people, you learn what not to do. And when you work with very highly talented people, you want to emulate them.		406

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