Bruce Dern Quotes

Because I`m the only actor who ever killed John Wayne in a picture, producers have pegged me for a villain.

I`ve played more psychotics and freaks and dopers than anyone.

(talking about his fight scene with John Wayne) He walloped me bad.

I never look back and say, "I wish I had played that role or this role". I never do that. You`re only as good as your next film. I look forward; I always feel that you have to continue onward and upward, you can`t look back. I became an actor because I felt I was interested in what makes human beings do what they do, particularly in times of crisis. That kind of acting is what I like to do.

I`m only too proud to say that I`ve never had ANY discipline problems with Laura (Laura Dern, his daughter). In fact, I never needed to lay a hand on her, because Diane (Diane Ladd, his former wife and Laura`s mother) was so much better at keeping her in line than I was.

(on James Dean) Dean was so real. I believed he was the real person, that he wasn`t acting. See, I never thought Rock Hudson was real. Or any of the guys in the forefront then -- Gregory Peck, Paul Newman and them.

(on Peter Fonda) In The Trip (1967/II) I started to get fed up. I was fed up because Peter Fonda was a star and I wasn`t. And Peter couldn`t act. I`m sorry, man, he just can`t act. He never bothered to sit and learn. He never studied. And he just kind of larked out. Now I don`t begrudge the fact that he has talent. But he`s not an actor, by any stretch of the imagination.

(on Charlton Heston) And I got to really like the guy. A lot of people told me that I wouldn`t like him, but I liked him. And he tried very hard. I mean, Will Penny (1968) is far and away the best thing he`s ever done.

The difference between my generation of actors and their generation is that they were bigger than life. We are not bigger than life.

I took Laura on a trip once where we followed the Immigrant Trail for about six hundred miles. She really learned a lesson. People forget too often how it was back then.

I`ve always thought that if Israel really wanted to solve the problem, they`d just start tomorrow and push right to the Jordan River, and anything in their way goes. They don`t need America or someone else to help.

Track and field has always interested me.

In Hitchcock`s eyes the movement was dramatic, not the acting. When he wanted the audience to be moved, he moved the camera. He was a subtle human being, and he was also the best director I have ever worked with.

The people I worked with were bigger than life. Once you put them on the screen, they were huge.

Sports betting is all about money management, so the most money won on one event is not the most important thing.

The closest thing we have to bigger than life is Clint Eastwood, and Clint`s not really bigger than life, nor would he really want to be.

I tried to make the Olympics team in 1956.

The Palestinians need more help from the Arab countries. Since 1967, the world has learned that there is not going to be real progress in the region until Palestine gets something back that they had.

When I was starting to get noticed as an actor in the 1970s for something other than the third cowboy on the right who ended up dying in every movie or episode, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world.