Altman Quotes

Oh come on, it hasn`t been an unimpressive career. If you look at the number of projects I`ve been involved in, the people I`ve worked with ... But it`s perhaps true that I haven`t always made the right choices. I`ve taken parts I didn`t particularly like because I wanted to work with the director - Altman, for example. But there`s very little that I actually regret doing. I had to do most of it, I needed the money. There are one or two things I could have said yes to, though. That`s probably true.

There are some directors I should have worked with. I`d like to have worked with Altman (Robert Altman) - I turned him down a couple of times when I was younger. My thing now is if it`s a good director I`ll never say no - I`m just gonna say yes from now on. (2004)

And I`d love to work with Robert Altman.

When I did Short Cuts (1993) with Robert Altman, I went up to him on the first day and said `Hi`, and he said `Hi, how are you? Could you get me a cup of coffee?` When I brought it back, it turned out he thought I was the PA. For him, I come alive on film. As a person, I don`t really register that much. I mean, he loves me, I don`t take it as a cut, although you could. But he says that as a person I disappear in a way. On film, I`m very mysterious, but in life I`m very dull. I don`t feel like I`m dull, but I don`t put out a lot.

Altman works in such an interesting way, letting things occur in the film even if he didn`t particularly plan them.

Bob Altman had this relaxed but serious attitude. Everybody loved him. I wanted him to adopt me.

Altman was told they wouldn`t do the film with me. He could easily have abandoned me, but he stood by me and really bailed me out.

With Altman, he does discuss everything with you, but then leaves you to it and gives you full rein and lets you improvise and create a character while the camera is rolling.

So I moved to Europe and only came back when directors like Robert Altman would call me after they`d seen my work in Full Metal Jacket.

I`ve worked with Robert Altman a couple of times too.

(Thoughts on the one film (or films) that made him want to become a filmmaker and why): There was no epiphany from one film. There were a few that stood out over the years. I was 8 when I saw _Ladri di biciclette (1948)_, and it was the first black-and-white film I had ever seen. It triggered my curiosity to start seeing European cinema. When I was 7, I saw The Making of `Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid` (1970). Hearing George Roy Hill talk about all the choices he made, I knew that directing movies was what I wanted to do. I remember seeing Death and Venice 40 times one year, and then switching my allegiance to Godard after seeing Masculine/Feminine! I knew early on that I was a nerd and that films were my refuge. Those first few minutes before the lights went off, and you`re alone in the theater waiting, were really pleasurable. Whether it was Steve McQueen, the coolest guy in cinema, to Robert Altman`s strange and wonderful 3 Women (1977), I saw hundreds of films before I ever picked up a camera. I believe I took something away from each one.

Yes, there are directors I admire, the mavericks. Altman. There are many good directors.

I went to school in a black tar-paper barrack (as a child in internment camps) and began the day seeing the barbed-wire fence, and thank god those barbed-wire fences are now long gone for Japanese Americans. But I still see an invisible, legalistic barbed-wire that keeps me, my partner of 19 years, Brad Altman, and another group of Americans separated from a normal life. That`s what I`ve been advocating on the Human Rights Campaign Equality Tour--I call it the Equality Trek." (during a 2006 interview with Scott Simon on National Public Radio)

I loved Altman. Even though we only made MASH and Brewster McCloud he offered me McCabe and Mrs. Miller and I had to turn it down to do Harold and Maude. But I never got over working under his supreme command and imagination. I adored Hal Ashby - he let me go to the limit and beyond and was always there to catch me. Robert Dornhelm is a fantastic director. I recently did an uncredited role for Joel Schumacher in "The Number 23" with Jim Carrey. I was fascinated by Joel`s kindness and relaxation on the set and yet his eye was constantly focused like an eagle. Wes Anderson is a trip. He is his own planet, a real artist; I just think he has so much greatness to give. His potential is enormous and gleaming, just like his fabulous New York loft.

With him (Altman), nothing?s etched in stone. A script is a foundation, or a blueprint, kind of written in wet cement.

Robert Altman`s Nashville is my all-time favorite film because it covers all the bases - it`s original, moving, and has something to say, but also funny and incredibly entertaining.

This is coming from Mr. Altman`s diary. I don`t remember it, but I will say to you that I wouldn`t want anybody poking around in 20 years of my life.