Campbell Scott quotes:

I had been to New Mexico many times. I loved it. It's a very exotic, interesting, severely crazy environment. I don't know if I could live there all year. It's such an intense place.

Breakfast at Tiffany's' isn't a great movie because Audrey Hepburn is brilliant and everyone else isn't. It's a great movie because everybody is fascinating, and she is at the center of it being amazing.

Television and cable have become the new independent films, in a sense, for writers and actors to gravitate towards. That's why I like short films, too; I love doing readings, audio books, working with young filmmakers; anything that keeps you from getting blase about yourself or in a rut.

I'm known as a kind of dramatic, serious, almost humorless actor and the fact is, I'm a funny guy, and I spend most of my life trying to find a lighter side of things, and on stage was given plenty of opportunity to do that.

As you get older, I think everyone feels that, no matter what the job: to try a hand at running the business as opposed to simply being an employee.

In the film world, and I know this from just talking to other people, that I'm known as a kind of dramatic, serious, almost humorless actor, and the fact is I'm a funny guy, and I spend most of my life trying to find a lighter side of things and on stage was given plenty of opportunity to do that.

Shakespeare is rich and beautiful, and it can be an amazing experience to read and to watch and to work on.

Most of us... are simply just trying to get through the day. And wait for those times in their life that are markers, that put things into relief. That's why we like movies and books so much.

I learned, especially from my mother, to respect the profession and take it seriously, but not take yourself too seriously.

I only made two studio movies, that was a long time ago and obviously I removed myself. I think some of that is geographical. I live in New York and I want to work there, it's as simple as that.

If you're playing a good guy, you show some darkness. If you're playing a dark guy, you show something different, like humor, that will mix it up and hopefully surpass the audience's expectations. What I'm battling all the time is complacency in the audience. I try to bring a little mystery to what might happen because that engages people more.

Movies, I don't really get the bad guys. In theater, I get more bad guys. Both audiences and directors are more willing... to allow people to stretch. In movies, you do one thing, and then that's their reference.

When you produce and direct, your movies are different to you. They're not just something you act in.

The high desert has an effect on people. The place has a way of swallowing you up.

Directing is: you're overwhelmed the whole time. Your mind never stops. If you care about it. You wake up in the morning and you begin thinking about it and then you go to sleep at night and you're still thinking about it.

I'm 47, I have gray hair, and yet people still come up to me on the street who are in their twenties, who weren't even born when 'Singles' was made...well, they were pretty tiny, anyway...and they say, 'Oh, I love that movie 'Singles.'' And I always say, 'How old are you?'

Working hard is great, being lazy sometimes is great, but failed potential is the worst.

I think people tend to live, whether they like it or not, influenced by what's next door to them.

I know it's good when I see a smaller film get recognized because it means more publicity for them. When you start producing and directing the movies become a little more like your children.

I love that I'm rarely recognized. I like it because I know I can look different from film to film.

I make little movies, you know, they need all the help that they can get.

After I directed, when I went back to being an actor, I was like, 'God, this is the life!' Because you only have to concentrate on one thing.

Actors aren't all the same. They have very different skills. There are actors of intellect who are very thoughtful about everything they do... and then there are actors of instinct who don't know what they're doing until the cameras roll... My father was actually quite thoughtful about what he did, while my mother was much more instinctual.

Think of the difference between a team sport and one that you do by yourself. Like it or not, if you're by yourself, you're going to be faced with a lot more of your own doubts and your own drawbacks and your own whatever.

I'm not a big one for lots of genitals flapping in the films.

Since I was from the theater, that's how I learned how to go through the process of being a character. That's how I learned, and that's what I was comfortable doing. And then, the first feature films, I'm sure I was no fun because I did not want to be spontaneous in that filmic way that really can work for you.

The fact is that you're never gonna believe any of the reviews, because the movie is to you what it is to you. No one's ever gonna sway you from what you feel about it.

I just wanna get to the end of the day without it raining.

Part of the advantage, and part of the result of trying to be a producer and director, are the practical things, you find. It's so advantageous to go to a place that you already have a feel for, a literal and spiritual familiarity.

I tend to turn down roles that are too much like me, what I think is most like me anyhow, because I'm me all the time and I'm sick of it.

What we do at its very, very best, at its very, very most, will shift us slightly in our seat. If only for two hours, great. If for the rest of our lives, even better.

In the editing room, 20 percent of the time you're using stuff from before the actor knew the camera was rolling or you're taking a line from somewhere else and putting it in his mouth.