Paul Newman

Study your craft and know who you are and what's special about you. Find out what everyone does on a film set, ask questions and listen. Make sure you live life, which means don't do things where you court celebrity, and give something positive back to our society.

Quoted in Craig Modderno, "Newman remains animated at 81," Reuters (12 June 2006), 2006

I'm like a good cheese. I'm just getting mouldy enough to be interesting.

Quoted in "Saint Paul," interview with John Aldridge, The Guardian (10 April 2005), 2005

It's all been a bad joke that just ran out of control. I got into food for fun but the business got a mind of its own. Now — my good Lord — look where it has gotten me. My products are on supermarket shelves, in cinemas, in the theater. And they say show business is odd.

Quoted in "Saint Paul," interview with John Aldridge, The Guardian (10 April 2005), 2005

To that extent that you can sustain and maintain that childlike part of your personality is probably the best part of acting.

As quoted in "Paul Newman's Road To Glory", interview with Paul Fischer, Film Monthly (1 July 2002), 2002

Building weapons that we don’t need, don’t work, and aren’t necessary, and have no mission — that’s not bad politics, that’s robbery.

Quoted in "Working for New Priorities," interview with Anita Merina, NEA Today (February 2000), 2000

I had no natural gift to be anything — not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches — not anything. So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.

Quoted in The Daily News (10 June 1991), 1991

I cannot bear to look at a film that I made before 1990. Maybe 1985. There's no sense even trying to explain it. I really just can't watch myself. I see all the machinery at work and it just drives me nuts, so I don't look at anything.

Quoted in John Hiscock, "Still the blue-eyed boy," The Telegraph (13 July 2002), 1990

I've been accused of being aloof. I'm not. I'm just wary.

Quoted in Paul and Joanne: A Biography of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward by Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein (1988), p. 314, 1988

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?

Quoted in Paul and Joanne: A Biography of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward by Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein (1988), p. 157, 1988

It's like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents and you say, "I am terribly sorry. I'm tired."

Upon winning the 1986 Academy Award for Best Actor, (in The Color of Money), after having being nominated seven times; quoted in Tom O'Neil, "Gold Derby,", Los Angeles Times (3 September 2006), 1986

I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.

Quoted in Maureen Dowd, "Testing Himself," The New York Times (28 September 1986), section 6, page 16, column 1, 1986

Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experiences.

Quoted in Leslie Halliwell, Halliwell’s Filmgoers’ Companion (1984), 1984

I was terrorized by the emotional requirements of being an actor. Acting is like letting your pants down; you're exposed.

Quoted in John Skow, "Verdict on a Superstar," Time (6 December 1982), 1982

I wasn't driven to acting by any inner compulsion. I was running away from the sporting goods business.

Quoted in John Skow, "Verdict on a Superstar," Time (6 December 1982), 1982

I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried — tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out.

Quoted in The Films of Paul Newman (1971) by Lawrence J. Quirk (Citadel Press), ), p. 36, 1971