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Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Stephen Lang Quotes

My favorite show from the ’60s was ‘Combat.’ And maybe ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’

– Stephen Lang

I don’t want to, in any way, characterize a race or a people or get accused of racial profiling, but the Irish, as lyrical and romantic as they can be in their poetry, they can be every bit as repressed in their personal relations.

– Stephen Lang

The world of ‘Terra Nova’ as we joined it… there is a certain amount of prosperity there, and in fact I would say that I was a bit surprised when I first got there to see how it had all developed and how sophisticated the colony was – I had envisioned it being a bit more Swiss Family Robinson, but that wasn’t my call.

– Stephen Lang

I think that war is diplomacy by other means, for sure, and there have been wars that have been fought for righteous reasons. There are wars that have had to be fought, and there will probably continue to be.

– Stephen Lang

Your primary tools, as an actor, are observation and imagination. You can pretty much get everything you need from that, and you do. It brings back that element of pretend.

– Stephen Lang

My criteria for doing theater has always been slightly different than my criteria with movies, in that there are a lot of reasons to do films, having to do with location, money, and first and foremost having to do with script and role and director.

– Stephen Lang

With correction, and given the chance, ‘Terra Nova’ can and will deliver seasons of transcendent images and story-telling. Failing to renew ‘Terra Nova’ is shortsighted, as myopic as it would have been to scrap the Hubble. ‘Terra Nova’ is the Hubble Telescope of television.

– Stephen Lang

‘Beyond Glory’ is responsible for this wave that I’ve been fortunate enough to ride for the last few years. And that I did primarily because I didn’t know what else to do. You might say I did it out of desperation.

– Stephen Lang

I always have a contract with a character. Even when he’s unappealing. The contract is to give him his due. To tell his story. And to keep his secrets.

– Stephen Lang

In the movies, I loved Errol Flynn whether he was playing a soldier or a pirate. I dug pirates. In fact, my first exposure to live performances was when my paternal grandfather took me to a D’Oyly Carte performance of ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ which impresario Sol Hurok imported from London. I loved every minute of it.

– Stephen Lang

I love scenes that are just emotional give and take. By the same token, action sequences are great to do. They have their own unique demands and requirements. So I take it as it comes, and hopefully you can get a good balance of all of that stuff.

– Stephen Lang

I’ve played the clarinet since I was a kid. I love to sing, but I’m not much of a singer. Let’s say that when it comes to vocalizing, I have the soul of Billy Bigelow but the voice of Jigger Cragan.

– Stephen Lang

You can play anyone if you’re open enough. It’s a form of possession. Each time you work on something, you allow yourself to be possessed by creating the environment for it. Then you allow the possession to happen – but not at the expense of your sanity or of your identity.

– Stephen Lang

When Steven Spielberg comes calling, it behooves you to seriously consider it.

– Stephen Lang

You try to go where the great scripts are, if you can, or you go where the not great scripts are, because that’s what’s being offered to you.

– Stephen Lang

As you get older, stuff starts to wear down. I can’t play four basketball games a week anymore. It takes me three days to recover from one. I’m a little older, a little scrappier. So now I do yoga instead. And whatever else happens in the day, I’m set up in the best way possible. I feel great. I’m so flexible.

– Stephen Lang

I loved Laurel and Hardy and TV shows like ‘Robin Hood’ and ‘Rama of the Jungle’.

– Stephen Lang

Theater, because of the commitment, it has to be a great role and a great play to me. It takes a lot out of you.

– Stephen Lang

On some level, acting is the art of pretend, and you have to have a highly cultivated sense of imagination. You have to be able to see things that aren’t there, no matter what aspect of acting, whether it’s green screen, whether it’s on stage, whether it’s anything else, whether you’re working on the radio.

– Stephen Lang

Occasionally, I have time to go to the theater, and I think for a minute, ‘Man, I’d really love to be doing a play right now.’ Because I loved doing plays when I was doing them. Then I think, ‘I want to do it right now, but will I want to do that Sunday matinee in six weeks?’

– Stephen Lang

My philosophy is, ‘Show up, shut up, and do your job,’ and if you do it to the satisfaction of your director and the public, you’re likely to be able to do it again.

– Stephen Lang

In a rehearsal room, your real resource as an actor aren’t the things around you; your resources are your imagination and your director and the other actors. In those close quarters, your imagination and your skills are what you turn to.

– Stephen Lang

Even with an improperly ground mirror, the Hubble delivered extraordinary images. When the flaw was corrected, the Hubble delivered images of transcendent beauty and value for many years. So too ‘Terra Nova.’ Even in its flawed first season, each episode was full of marvelous moments and beautiful images.

– Stephen Lang

I have a penchant for playing God’s clowns. Actually, I played Nijinsky once, and he used to call himself God’s clown.

– Stephen Lang

My favourite dish is pollo ajillo; my favourite drink is a good Rioja with it. And as for my favourite music, oh God – there’s so many things I like. Well, I’d say it’s ‘Walk of Life’ by Dire Straits.

– Stephen Lang

I’ve always been curious about why one man jumps out of a foxhole with a grenade and charges a machine gun nest, and his buddy next to him sits there cowering. And my feeling is that the difference is tiny between the two.

– Stephen Lang