Ray Walston Quotes

Talent will come out.

The only thing I know about Broadway at the moment is that the box-office prices are absolutely unbelievable in terms of high they are.

I`m an actor and that`s it -- period. Producers and studios have thrown many things at me over the years: comedy, tragedy, drama, drawing-room comedy. I`ve managed to keep my head above water in most of these genres, but I don`t put myself in any one category like "comic actor" or "musical-comedy" actor. (on being labeled a character actor)

I thought, `What am I doing here? I`m running around with two pieces of wire coming out of my head. I must be crazy. -- recalling his thoughts after four episodes of "My Favorite Martian" (1963).

I never should have done My Favorite Martian" (1963). I didn`t work in TV or film for three years after. Everyone thought of me as a Martian. Do you know what it`s like to go to Madrid, Spain, on vacation and have a guy yell out, `Hey, Martin!` and put antennas behind his head? When that happens, you know your career is dead." -- "USA TODAY," 1995

I don`t watch television.

One thing that came up, that I haven`t gotten over yet, was the fact that when I began working on the role, I went and had my hair bleached white.

I don`t see all the movies that come out.

But I would like to think that it`s the actor that makes the difference in these cases. Not the director, not the guy that wrote the book, not the guy that adapted it for the screen, but the actor.

I love going on location, and the location was nice.

I feel that the thing that probably aided me the most in that scene with the dog was the utilization and using an actual recreation, affective memory, if you want to call it, of pain.

I`ve often wondered, when they`ve done Of Mice And Men on stage, and I`ve seen it, how they did that gun thing. I`ve watched it on stage, but I don`t remember it.

I have 30 seconds to tell you I have been waiting 60 years to get on this stage. -- his 1995 Emmy acceptance speech

I didn`t study acting.

If they`re working in a workshop somewhere, where there is, let`s say, uh... only twenty people, or something like that, that`s still, when they work and do a scene, that`s still working in front of somebody.

I have worked with some very great directors.

I should have been trying to build a career, rather than leaving it in the hands of somebody else.

I suppose when I was a kid, and I went to movies, and later went to some plays on my own when I got a little older, in New Orleans, where I was living then, I zeroed in on the actor.

You could walk the streets, no matter how hungry people were, not matter how long they`d been out of jobs, you could walk the streets, you could ride the subways in New York, and you would not get knocked in the head.

If it`s not in New York, let`s say it`s in St. Louis, then they`ve got to find a place or get with someone who knows about the work... they`ve got to find a place like that and do scenes, and then try to get in plays.

Well, I would think that, uh... yeah, I would think that Of Mice And Men would heighten people`s awareness of other people`s problems.

I was very conscious of the actor; watched what he did.