Imitators Quotes

The person who`s had the most impact on acting since Marlon Brando, the only person who`s really changed acting, is Julia Roberts. I call it the Julia Roberts School of Acting. It`s an excess of competence. She`s got all these imitators, and they just basically get on screen and smile. The idea is, smile and say your line. And Julia Roberts herself - well, that`s one thing. But she has a ton of pupils who get on screen and basically just smile. And their smile is so winning, and so wonderful, that you say, `I like that person`. And it drives me crazy, because the point of performance is not to be liked. My grandfather`s a politician, and he can never understand. He says, `You`ve got to stop playing these people no one would ever like!` But my job is not to be liked. It`s to make interesting things. I want to actually do something, rather than just be me on screen. Julia Roberts does something with it, but all her imitators. It`s like the imitators of Raymond Carver, that generation of writers copying him, I guess: it looks simple to them and they copy it, but they`re missing the thing that made it special.

(About Elvis Presley) He was a unique artist... an original in an area of imitators.

We`re not talking about satirists and imitators.

(Though Wilson was the most notable playwright of his generation, he doesn`t seem to have influenced younger writers. He doesn`t have obvious imitators.) It would almost amount to arrogance to try to imitate him, ... His writing is so personal, with its musical rhythms.

Students must have initiative; they should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves - and be free.