Fred Ward Quotes

At one point I was doing theater in San Francisco and actually living in the theater. I was broke. I was boxing - working out in a gym - and this trainer got me into the union. He started putting all the guys in his stable into the union. So I started making money, stopped acting and saved, to get to Europe. I kept moving around. Three years later I started acting again, because acting drove me. But I was still restless. I studied acting in New York for only six months before I wanted to get a ship for Europe. I`d heard that in Brooklyn you could get into the Scandinavian maritime union and get a ship without having papers. Wound up in Florida, then New Orleans, then Houston. I eventually came to California, worked in a bowling alley as a short-order cook. I drifted, picked tomatoes and beans and lived in labor camps in Ventura County. I wound up in Big Sur. I just kept moving. I went to Ketchikan, Alaska, lived with the Indians in stilt houses, worked in a lumber mill. And I still knew I would get back into acting. Eventually I traveled to Yugoslavia on a freighter, then went to Valencia, Spain and then on to Tangier. I spent three months in Morocco. I wound up in Rome - and finally started acting. - On his life before acting.

Timber faller. It`s the most dangerous, aside from combat, that you can ever have. There are a lot of ways you can get killed. A tree can "barber chair" - come back on you. "Widowmakers," which are dead limbs, can fall out. You can`t predict what a tree will do sometimes. You have to watch sawdust and make sure the tree`s not rotting. If it is, it might split on you. It`s dangerous, it`s hot - it`s hard work. You have a big chain a saw that`s rattling away and bouncing around, and you`re slipping and sliding and standing on land that`s sometimes nearly straight up and down. It can get crazy. On the other hand, I never wanted to work in an office under fluorescent lights. - On the toughest job he ever had.

I decided to act when I was in the Air Force. I was going with a stripper in San Antonio, hanging out with some bizarre fringe people - who considered themselves "show people" - including this 250-pound transvestite who designed costumes for strip joints, and a few gangsters. I was a young kid in the middle of this stuff, and it led to my decision. They weren`t role models in a strict sense; more like the old freaks in the freak show. When I was younger I always felt like an outsider, and they said it was all right to be "the other." They had a nice little society, a little culture, and they dealt with life. So, as soon as I got out of the Air Force, I went right to New York. I figured that I could do anything I wanted. I had no one to answer to, nothing holding me back. - On when he decided to become an actor.

I think it`s better for the picture to have as much of me as it can. But I also cherish getting down and doing some acting.

When you`re a father, you know exactly where your heart really is. There`s no question of it, no doubt. That part of your life has no second guessing.