Jeffrey Tambor Quotes
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And I'd watch George C. Scott from backstage. He was one of my mentors.
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I don't like show business. I don't like the business. I love acting. I love this. I love talking to people.
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You keep your head down and you work and work, and all of a sudden you pick your head up and people are receiving it the same way we're sending it. They're thinking the same things that I'm thinking about the show.
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I remember I was standing next to Timothy Dalton in Brenda Starr, and he turned to me and said,"Oh, I think I've just been tagged to play James Bond." I'll never forget that. I went, "Oh! Okay. Well, good for you."
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I love Brooke Shields. She's developed into a wonderful actress and a wonderful person. We were all babies then in Brenda Starr. That's why when people say, "What did you think of that film?" I can't do what people do and say, "I hated it." I can't speak ill of a film, because it's so hard to make a film. Everybody thinks we're sitting by a pool peeling grapes, and this is not the case. It's hard. It's hard to do this stuff - and getting harder!
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At the beginning of the Larry Sanders show, you know, we were grateful to get guests. At the end, it was as if we actually were The Tonight Show. People would come on, and it had the same sort of imprimatur as if we were on the air. I've been on a lot of talk shows during that time and since then, and people would come up in the dressing room or in the corridors and say, "You guys got it exactly right." Or they would say, "We have Larry Sanders moments every day."
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I never want to have that on my shoulders - I never want to be number one on the call sheet. That's a life that I don't want. I mean, I'm not ducking the responsibility.
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I'd always had a crush on Teri Garr - and still do. I've always adored her. I mean, who doesn't think about Teri in Young Frankenstein? I mean, come on! It makes you talk in that accent for weeks.
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I get a singular comment that's very revealing: "I didn't know what to expect." Every time I hear that I think it's really just code for, "I wasn't sure I'd be comfortable with you in this role," which I understand coming from Oscar Bluth and Hank Kingsley and whatever. But I think there's a degree of, "Oh, okay, this is how it is." Then almost always people tell me that they love it and then people start talking to me about their families, whether it's transgender issues or not.
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Guillermo del Toro. He's in his pure artist's stroke. He's just hitting it out of the park. I would go anywhere to work with him. He's a real artist.
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I really loved my dad. I was very, very close to my dad. He - you know, he was very, very nervous about my being an actor.
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Saturday The 14th movie is a cult classic. And you know another one like that that I did, is Three O'Clock High. People come up to me about those two all the time. Film schools even study Three O'Clock High. Shot for shot, it's a textbook.
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Am I a star? That's a different thing. I mean no, I'm not in People magazine. But I must be doing something right, because I've done it for 50 years! And I like doing what I do.
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I came to New York late; I was already past 30
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Everyone has to do the same work as actors - I teach acting. But there are those people who come on, and there's just something about them in and above themselves that has to do with chemistry and electricity - this aura about them. And that's unmistakable. Do I have that? Yeah, I think I have that.
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This whole thing about winning and losing is muddy waters. But I can remember, as a young actor, just walking around this city and not being able to get arrested.
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The most telling one was recently on a plane. This guy very dressed up and formal - the watch, the shoes, the cufflinks, the whole nine yards - he came at me, and I thought I was going to get nailed. But he literally came up to me and just gave me a hug and said, "Thank you for introducing me to a subject that I didn't know anything about." In those moments it always clicks for me what we're doing here.
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My education was doing good plays and also stinkers. When you do a stinker, you learn how to act. I like having to audition. It's nice to do rehearsals. But it's with an audience that you get to love it!
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I think your resources are feeling. Your resources are depth. Your resources are learning. Your resources are touching and feeling. And for me, sobriety helps and aids all of that.
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My part had three lines. I said, You look wonderful, sir, three times. All my friends said, Do not take that role - and do not understudy. You'll regret it the rest of your life. I did both of those things, and I've never regretted it once.
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I thought Pan's Labyrinth was one of the greatest films I've ever seen, just pure artistry. Guillermo Del Toro is just really something, this guy. And he's a real mensch: down-to-earth, funny, huggy, and terrific.
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With Hellboy I am doing a comic-book movie. That's what's so great about being an actor: You get to do Meet Joe Black, and you get to do Arrested Development, and then you get to do Hellboy and Eloise, and The Sponge Bob Square Pants Movie. It's great. You get to play the field.
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That's an actor's life. I thought Meet Joe Black was gonna be one of the big changes for me, and it was gonna be a runaway hit - and it wasn't. And with Mr. Mom, I said, "There's just no way." And it turned out to be a huge hit.
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Mel Brooks and David Zucker - there are very few people who know silly, and they're usually hugely intelligent, because you have to be intelligent to get it. Like the Marx brothers. I love it.
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All my roles are character roles. On the other hand, there are those people who have an inner...I think we all do the same thing. You can't get by on aura alone. That I know. Everyone has to dig in. Everyone has to do the same set of, "What is this about? What is this character doing?" Everybody from Spencer Tracy to Brad Pitt to Jeffrey Tambor.
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I thought that the hardest part would be the external - would be the - oh, nails and the hair and the makeup and the dress and the heels and the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And actually, that wasn't the hardest. That was very, very, very easy for me, and I liked it.
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You push a button and it goes all over the world and on Sunday people are saying, 'Oh, I binge watched all 10 of them. Where's more?' and you go oh, the world has changed. It's not my dad walking to the television set and turning a knob to Ed Sullivan.
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Carlos Castaneda always said, "If you're going to do something, do it impeccably."
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I remember going to Bob Preston's dressing room because I was losing a laugh - as you do in a long run. He said, 'Give me the script. That's where you're going off the road.' That's comedy. It's never the line itself; it's in the foundation.
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I loved Hank Kingsley. He was very real to me. There was just something about that character. I really believed him. I didn't think he was a buffoon. I understood the inner workings of him, so I sort of felt sorry for him, the poor guy. He was very important to me.
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