Stephen Rea Quotes

I think great art is always ambiguous and can't be pinned down.

People ask me to smile for the camera, but somehow it always comes out gloomy.

I have never been to a brothel. I don't think I could go into one.

I am afraid of death, scared by it. I already don't know whether I exist or not. So dying really terrifies me.

The worst thing for an actor is a director that gets on your nerves and says things that actually confuse you.

At least when you're acting you can be someone. In front of the camera you have to be yourself. And who am I?

I didn't want to be seen as just a guy on a list. I'm interested in good scripts, scripts that are about something, scripts that move your acting along.

That was the beginning of modern acting for me. You don't have to tell a camera everything. It gets bored if you do and wants to look elsewhere.

People often refer to my career before The Crying Game as something which led up to that point. But I was very fulfilled in what I was doing.

Angel was the first Irish feature film. Neil's first movie and my first movie.

I've never been in a bad play. There might have been bad productions and I might have been bad in them, but I've never been in a play that wasn't interesting or worthwhile doing on some level.

My kids act all the time and its exactly what I used to do.

I'm enjoying it, but I still don't know why I'm hooked on acting.

I loved movies as a teenager and saw as much American cinema as I could, but I hated the English films of the early 60s and had absolutely no point of identification with them.

I don't know that I'm 'hangdog'. That suggests someone skulking around, unengaged. I'm not. I'm 'engaged', believe me. I have just got a slightly sad face.

I believe some people in this business suffer from fame because they behave in a famous fashion.

Acting is way of making yourself exist.

You have to know who you are, if you don't you have nightmares.