Dennis Farina Quotes

I learned a long time ago: You're in the entertainment business. You're not in the reality business. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

I wanted to do Buddy Faro as a small budget movie. They said no. So I wanted to do it as a series of recurring TV movies, and they said no. So I agreed to do it as a series.

I have a home in Arizona. I go a couple months a year, but basically Chicago is my home.

You cant act for the editing. You just go in and do the scene the way you think is right.

As far as carrying the American banner, you just do what's right for the kids.

You can change a person's life in an instant; put him in a movie, and you start thinking differently, you want to be in another movie. It's like an addiction almost.

I know people who go back and check themselves, but it drives me crazy. Everybody wants to look in the mirror and see Cary Grant looking back at them, but that's just not the case.

When I was a kid going to the movies, we'd go because Bogart was in the movie, or Cagney, or John Wayne. We didn't know what the story was about or anything.

What you do as a policeman might be the right thing to do, but it's not entertaining. I left that behind me.

I read the script and try not to bring anything personal into it. I make notes, talk to the director and we decide what kinds of shades should be in the character.

There's a whole catalogue of actors that never went to acting school.

Do whatever you're directed to do, and leave the rest of that technical stuff up to the director.

I've tried writing. Two days later I'd go visit it and say, Jesus Christ, who wrote this crap?

I think first impressions are important when you pick up a script.

I love England and the historical aspect of it.

This is my first experience working in a foreign movie, but the mechanics, I think, are pretty much the same all over; you still have to wait in the trailer.

I think all actors are supposed to be character actors.

I'd love to do a Western. A real Western like John Ford used to do. There's not too many of them made, so I don't know if I'll ever get to do that. They're awfully hard movies to make.

I don't like to be talked into anything. I don't want to be cajoled.

I don't know if I have a technique. I'm just trying to remember the words.

I'm old enough to never say never. I never had a grand plan with what I was going to do. There are some movies that I would like to be involved with, but I'm trying to be a working actor.

I realize that no one is going to come to me and ask me to be Julius Caesar or a romantic lead, but I think I'm a certain type of guy who looks a certain way, and that's just the reality of things.

One of the funny things in life to me is a guy who takes himself very seriously.

I don't need to see the old school to remember it and the teachers there. They changed the way that I've always looked at life and learning.

Sometimes you can take those dramatic roles and maybe interject a little humor into them, and I think the reverse also works.