Lumet Quotes

(On following his own gut in career choices): I was 18, did a couple of things on TV, then I did Ordinary People (1980) and when you are fortunate enough to be in a movie like that, working with Robert Redford as the director and the movie is as well received as it was, it would be ludicrous to have a master plan for a career. So next, I was in Wayne, PA doing Taps (1981) and then I was back in New York working with Sidney Lumet doing an ensemble movie called Daniel (1983). And I turned down a starring role in Risky Business (1983), even though all my agents and manager said I was crazy. But I looked at it and asked myself, "What was the experience going to be like? What will I learn?" And looking back at myself at 23, being able to work with Sidney Lumet and E.L. Doctorow, I have absolutely no regrets. I learned stuff that will stay with me forever. (Timothy Hutton in DAILY NEWS, September 13, 1998)

(2005 Academy Awards acceptance speech for Best Director) Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I`d like to thank my wife, who is my best pal down here. And my mother, who was here with me in 1993. She was only 84 then. But she`s here with me again tonight. And she just -- so, at 96, I`m thanking her for her genes. It was a wonderful adventure. It takes a -- to make a picture in 37 days, it takes a well-oiled machine. And that well-oiled machine is the crew -- the cast, of course, you`ve met a lot of them. But there`s still Margo and Anthony and Michael and Mike and Jay and everybody else who was so fabulous in this cast. And the crew, Campanelli. Billy Coe and, of course, Tom Stern, who is fantastic. And Henry Bumstead, the great Henry Bumstead who is the head of our crack geriatrics team. And Henry and Jack Taylor, and Dick Goddard (Richard C. Goddard), all those guys. Walt and everybody. I can`t think of everybody right now. I`m drawing a blank right now. But, Warren, you were right. And thank you, for your confidence earlier in the evening. I`m just lucky to be here. Lucky to be still working. And I watched Sidney Lumet, who is 80, and I figure, "I`m just a kid. I`ll just -- I`ve got a lot of stuff to do yet." So thank you all very much. Appreciate it.

(Presenting the Lifetime of Achievement Award to director Sidney Lumet at the 2005 Academy Awards) As an old village poet put it to me in the 1960s. (If you dig it, it`s yours). I dug Sidney Lumet back then. I dig him now because what he had to give, I took and made it mine. I`m forever grateful along with all the other actors and writers who have benefited from Sidney`s genius.

I was walking around with the babies so much that when I got to the Sidney Lumet picture, I would be on set in between takes and I`d be rocking back and forth. Just standing like this rocking back and forth, and Sidney would say, Why are you walking like that in between takes?

(At the Academy Awards in 2002, explaining why he was the one introducing a montage of New York movies) And I said, `You know, God, you can do much better than me. You know, you might want to get Martin Scorsese, or, or Mike Nichols, or Spike Lee, or Sidney Lumet...` I kept naming names, you know, and um, I said, `Look, I`ve given you 15 names of guys who are more talented than I am, and, and smarter and classier...` And they said, `Yes, but they weren`t available.`

Well, when I first got sent the script to The Assignment (1997), I thought, `Why don`t they offer this to Andy Garcia?` And it turned out they did. I said, `Oh, OK`. I had a little bit of a question of `How the hell am I gonna be believable?` Or `Will it be that much of a question in the audience`s mind that I`m supposed to be Venezuelan?` So, we went with the brown contacts for Carlos and darkened my skin, worked with a good dialogue coach. And then when I heard Andy Garcia was playing an Irish cop in Sidney Lumet`s movie (Night Falls on Manhattan (1997)), I stopped worrying about it. But that`s one of the great things about being an actor. We get to play dress up. And that`s what this movie was for me. Wigs, beards, mustaches, dialogues. Intrigue. It was a tremendous amount of hard work, but fun work for me.