Richard Jenkins

My character wouldn't do that.' That was always my favorite thing people say: 'My character wouldn't do that.' I said, 'Well, it says right here in this script your character does that.'

There's nothing like walking onto a Hollywood sound stage.

I'd like to play the whale in 'Moby Dick.' If I keep eating, I may end up getting there.

Rehearsal for film is tough. Until the camera's there, everything changes.

When I go to the movies, I want to see a human being dealing with their lives. That's all I ask.

I worked with Mike Nichols. First time I worked with Mike Nichols, I just really loved this man.

It's like, in movies where you talk to the audience 90 percent of the time, it's - you kind of want to stay away from that stuff. But, you know - but to write exposition brilliantly is hard.

Any time you die in a film, it's not real, so it's all kind of fun.

I was an only child, and I spent a lot of time alone. My dad was an only child, too, so we didn't have a big family, and I was really close with both of my parents. Like any kid, I thought I knew more than they did.

Sometimes you read things that people don't even notice in a performance, that you just are moved by or understand that this actor is really living his or her life on the screen. The first time I realized that was when I watched Brando in 'On the Waterfront.'

When I was about 12, I came home from middle school and told my parents I wanted to be an actor. My father didn't say it to me, but he told my mom, 'No. I'm not going to allow that. He'll starve to death.' I grew up in a small town in Illinois where being an actor was not something people did.

There's a lot of jobs that you can do that you can be miserable at. Making movies should not be one of them.