H.P. Oliver Quotes

I haven't ever seen a period drama that has a fantasy element to it, that's set in London, that's as lavish as it is, and that's made for American TV.

I rarely watch TV, and in the past two years, I've done three TV shows. It's quite interesting.

You work with seasoned actors, and sometimes you realize that they phone it in.

As the show [Dracula] goes on,Jonathan Harker gets darker and darker, and further into that side of it all. All of the worlds end up colliding and meshing together.

I think it's very rare, as an actor, that you get to a script, or an idea of a script, and you go, "Oh, I just have to do that!" It fell into place very quickly.

I'm perfectly honest, I've never seen Twilight, I've never seen The Vampire Diaries, and I've never seen True Blood, or anything like that.

We read the [Dracula] scripts, but Jess [De Gouw] and I are completely taken out of the hunts and anything with Van Helsing. We're just living our lives, as our characters.

On network, you have limitations for how raunchy it can get and how violent it can get.

Vampires have been romanticized, and this is bringing it right back to being vampiric. I think there's something sexy and raw about that.

Dracula isn't just another vampire show. It's something entirely different that I personally feel I've never seen on American TV before.

I went to a French school, so we didn't study Bram Stoker there. I just thought it was a genius thing.

Nowadays, everything is so gratuitous. The violence is suggested, and it's much more impactful than showing everything.

..if a special geometry has to be invented in order to account for a falling apple, even Newton might be appalled at the complications which would ensue when really difficult problems are tackled.

In business a reputation for keeping absolutely to the letter and spirit of an agreement, even when it is unfavorable, is the most precious of assets, although it is not entered in the balance sheet.

Power in a corporation becomes residual and dwells in the background. It is the ability to exercise nice matters of judgment.

Flattery is the infantry of negotiation.

It's very tricky to know when to stop. I think there are definitely moments where you feel that is the heart of a scene. When you're working on the script, you're looking for a handle on it.

2005 was a great year for me for fantastic roles that nobody saw.

I think of myself as an actor.

People start to act very unusually when they find out that they're dying, that they don't have that many years left.

The only thing I wanted to do when I was a young naive kid was to become a New York stage actor.

The directors that I end up having a really good time with are the ones that understand the fluidity of the medium and are interested in catching lightning in a bottle.

I don't like doing most things unless I can do them quite well.

Winner gave me my bread and Russell gave me my art.

There is among doctors, in acute hospitals at least, a presumption of stupidity in their patients.

Astounded—and indifferent—for he was a man who, in effect, had no ‘day before’.

I just listen to quite random songs; I don't like really particular artists or bands.

I've got quite a varied iTunes, and I like to raid people's CD collections and take on their music.

I put things on shuffle a lot, which is probably why I don't have a very good idea of genre.

The helicopter has never achieved much success and . . .may be classes with the ornithopter as obsolete.

There is this thing about time that you can't see at the time you're at.

We could learn a lot from the ancients, and we should go back there.

My protest against digital has been me saying, "What's going to happen to film?" The result is that Kodak is out of business. That's a national tragedy. We've got to keep making film.

In digital, you can maintain the quality.

Robert Kagan said the neocons couldn't get a better president than Hillary Clinton, who would enforce the neocon foreign policy. No one's questioned it.

Anyone can relate to suffering in this world.

We have enormous challenges in front of us.

I'm trying to understand my life. The one that I've experienced.

Cynicism was a school in Greece - the Cynics. Diogenes is a famous Cynic. There was a strong belief in nihilism and narcissism. Those are old schools too.

America is the strongest empire ever, with the largest military. We spend ten times what the Russians do. And they have equal nuclear ability as we do, because they're precise.

In any film there's always a historical implication.

I like automatic weapons. I fought for my right to use them in Vietnam.

You're not a historian, but most historians will tell you that they make very discrete judgment as to what facts to omit in order to make their book into some shape, some length that can be managed.

What needs to happen is more of a global understanding, and I believe the United States can work as a global partner and not be the hegemon.

Venezuela is a democratically elected government. These people who keep protesting are sore losers.

[When making movies I] set out to be authentic to [myself] and to put it down the way [I] feel it and know it and interpret it. And then others sometimes key into it and get it.

Bin Laden was completely protected by the oil companies in this country who told [President] Bush not to go after him because it would piss off the Saudis.

I'd rather get past the tyranny of now, where you get judged for something based on what's happening at the moment.

I feel like I am what I am.

I didn't like my classmates at Yale. George W.Bush was in my class. I didn't know it then.