There’s a picture of the real Coach Gary Gaines in the book and he’s sitting in the locker room after a game, and he just looks so much like Billy Bob, that we went to him. – Peter Berg
Boxing is not always about standing in the middle going toe to toe. It’s about poise and grace under extreme pressure. – Peter Berg
I’ve been a big believer in musicians turned actor, going back to Sinatra winning the Oscar for ‘From Here To Eternity.’ David Bowie in ‘Man Who Fell to Earth,’ Kris Kristofferson’s been great in a bunch of films. Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, I thought was great in ‘Precious.’ – Peter Berg
When I look back at it, I’m mostly amazed at how poorly it was shot. David Kelley is a great writer, and I thought the scripts were great, but it just looks so cheap. – Peter Berg
Then they started pulling me in and I was very resistant. All the other actors would be saying write more, more dialogue for me, and I’d always be saying ‘No, less, less’. – Peter Berg
Truth is, we offered it to Tom Hanks, which pretty much every movie in America does, but Tom passed. Billy Bob said that Hanks recently called and said he’s voting for all of us for Oscars, he loved the film. – Peter Berg
The SEALs rarely call the Taliban ‘terrorists’ because they respect them as worthy opponents. – Peter Berg
Some directors want to make superhero films. That’s what gets them off, and they love it, and they love sci-fi. I prefer putting my hands into non-fiction. – Peter Berg
The big fun in ‘Battleship’ is that there are no current battleships in the Navy today. The battleships are about 1,000 feet long and they have huge guns. They were what you saw in WWII. The last battleship that was used was the Missouri, which is what the Japanese surrendered to. – Peter Berg
What first caught my eye about Rihanna was an interview she did with Diane Sawyer after the Chris Brown incident, where she was very articulate, very poised, obviously a smart girl who talked about a very traumatic experience. – Peter Berg
I somewhere along the way became fascinated with exploring characters who are willing to put themselves into violent situations, whether it’s football, hockey, boxing, being a cop, being a soldier. There’s not a lot of people who are willing to put themselves into those situations. – Peter Berg
I don’t want to be knocked out. But the contact and the focus and the energy I get from sparring gives me energy to make movies, energy to be a dad, energy to be a friend, and, you know, makes me feel, probably, a lot younger and behave a lot younger than I am. – Peter Berg
When I started making films, like almost every filmmaker, I think, you’re just so excited to be able to make a movie that you’ll do anything. – Peter Berg
I’ve had great success and I’ve had catastrophic failure. It’s really how you handle the rough stuff that defines you, I think. – Peter Berg
If you’re a 50-year-old guy, and you’re sitting around the house with – you know, and just getting fatter, feeling sorry for yourself, get up and move your body and see what it does to your life and to your mind and to your happiness and to your energy levels. And I get all that from boxing. – Peter Berg
I found at a certain point in my acting career that I was just bored. I had too much energy. I had too many ideas. – Peter Berg
I don’t go to a lot of other directors’ sets; directors don’t come to mine. Directors are all very cordial with each other, but they’re not necessarily friendly. – Peter Berg