The Player Quotes in The Driver (1978)

The Detective: Nice Place. Terrific view. Wow.

The Player: You didn't come up here to tell me that.

The Detective: You saw the man in the car. And you saw the man against the brick wall. And you know it's the same man. Yet you didn't identify him. Are you afraid of him?

The Player: No.

The Detective: Are you afraid of me?

The Player: No. I just don't like you.

The Detective: How old are you? Twenty-two. I did a little checking.

The Player: What else did you check?

The Detective: Well, a girl as young as yourself, you sure have been around the track a few times, honey. Led a real active life.

The Player: Get out!

The Detective: No. We're going to do a little business, you and I.

[shows her a photo of The Driver]

The Detective: Look at it! Are you sure it's not him?

The Player: It's not him.

The Detective: Oh, really? Maybe you should be afraid of me. I ran a make on you.

[smiles]

The Detective: You're clean. No problem. Of course, there *was* that one little scrape. Remember? The kinda nasty one? The one that got swept under the rug? Now when your memory improves, honey, give me a call.

[leaves]

The Detective: [reacting sarcastically to her sullen response as she opened the door] I guess that means I can come in.

[enters, looks around]

The Detective: Nice place.

[walks toward picture window]

The Detective: Terrific view. Hah.

The Player: You didn't come here to tell me that.

The Detective: [getting to the point] You saw the man who was driving the car, and you saw the man up against the brick wall, and you know it is the same man, yet you didn't identify him. Are you afraid of him?

The Player: No.

The Detective: Are you afraid of me?

The Player: [slowly turns around] No.

[looks at him disdainfully]

The Player: I just don't like you.

The Detective: Hmm. You had a reason?

[the Driver, hiding in next room, overhears]

The Detective: [deeply pensive, mocking] Must be because I'm such a good cop. How old are you?

[she doesn't respond]

The Detective: Twenty-two. I did a little checking.

The Player: [inwardly wincing] What else did you check?

The Detective: Well, a young girl like yourself, you sure have been around the tracks a few times, honey. Gmph! Led a real active life.

The Player: [had been keeping herself in check for a long time] Get out!

The Detective: No. We're gonna do a little business, you and I.

[retrieves a photograph of The Driver from inside jacket pocket, tapping it menacingly as he waves it at her]

The Detective: Look at it!

[she turns her head slowly]

The Detective: You sure that is not him?

The Player: It's not him.

The Detective: Really? Maybe you ought to be afraid of me.

[stuffs photo back in pocket, then leans forward confidentially, grinning]

The Detective: I ran a make on you. You're clean, no problem.

[circles her]

The Detective: Course there was that one little scrape. You remember? That kinda nasty one?

[very coldly]

The Detective: The one that got swept under the rug?

[letting that sink in]

The Detective: Now, when your memory improves, honey, give me a call.

[walks out, as she gives a cold sardonic smile to herself]

The Player: There's a design at work in all art... events must play themselves out to an aesthetic, moral and logical conclusion. We aim at the point where everyone who is marked for death... dies. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have got about as bad as they can reasonably get.

Guildenstern: Who decides?

The Player: Decides? It is written!

The Player: Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go, when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get.

Guildenstern: It could have been - it didn't have to be obscene! I was prepared. But it's this, is it? No enigma, no dignity, nothing classical, poetic - only this, a comic pornographer and a rabble of prostitutes!

The Player: You should have caught us in better times. We were purists then.

Rosencrantz: [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are about to be hanged] That's it then, is it? We've done nothing wrong. We didn't harm anybody, did we?

Guildenstern: I can't remember.

Rosencrantz: All right, then. I don't care. I've had enough. To tell you the truth, I'm relieved.

Guildenstern: There must have been a moment at the beginning, where we could have said no. Somehow we missed it. Well, we'll know better next time.

The Player: Till then.

The Player: We're actors! We're the opposite of people!

The Player: We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.

Guildenstern: Is that what people want?

The Player: It's what we do.

Guildenstern: We're still finding our feet.

The Player: I should concentrate on not losing your head.

The Player: We are tragedians, you see? We follow directions. There is no choice involved. The bad end unhappily, the good, unluckily. That is what tragedy means.

The Player: [after the performance in front of the servants] Are you familiar with this play?

Guildenstern: No.

The Player: A slaughterhouse, eight corpses all told.

Guildenstern: [does a quick mental recount, then] Six.

The Player: Eight.

[the two tragedians who resemble Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are "hanged"]

Guildenstern: Who are they?

The Player: They're dead.

The Player: The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily... that is what Tragedy means.

Rosencrantz: [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have read the switched letter and learned that they will be executed] They had it in for us, didn't they? Right from the beginning. Who'd have thought we were so important?

Guildenstern: But why? Was it all for this? Who are we that so much should converge on our little deaths?

The Player: You are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. That's enough.

Guildenstern: Where's Hamlet?

Rosencrantz: Gone!

Guildenstern: Gone, where?

Rosencrantz: The pirates took him.

Guildenstern: But they can't! We're supposed to be... We've got a letter which says... The whole thing's pointless without him. We need Hamlet for our release!

Rosencrantz: I'll pretend to be... *You* pretend to be him, and... Right.

[pauses]

Rosencrantz: I suppose we just go on.

Guildenstern: Go where?

Rosencrantz: England?

Guildenstern: England. I don't believe it!

Rosencrantz: What, just a conspiracy of cartographers, you mean?

Guildenstern: [grabs Rosencrantz] I *mean* I don't believe it! And even if it's true, what do we say?

Rosencrantz: We say, "We've arrived!"

The Player: [as King of England] Who are you?

Rosencrantz: We are Guildenstern & Rosencrantz.

The Player: [as King] Which is which?

Rosencrantz: Well, I'm Guildenstern.

Guildenstern: And he's Rosencrantz.

Rosencrantz: Exactly.

The Player: [as King] What does this have to do with me? You turn up out of the blue with some cock-and-bull story...

Guildenstern: We have a letter.

[presents letter]

The Player: [as King] A letter?

[chuckles, takes letter]

The Player: Hm.

[reading]

The Player: As England is Denmark's faithful tributary. As love between them, like the palm might flourish, et cetera, that on the knowing of these contents, without delay of any kind, should those bearers, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, put to sudden death.

Rosencrantz: Not that letter. Give him the other one.

Guildenstern: I haven't got another one.

The Player: [shrugs, then yells to Tragedians] They're gone! It's all over!

Guildenstern: Where we went wrong, was getting on a boat.

The Player: Why?

Guildenstern: Ah, why?

Rosencrantz: Exactly!

Guildenstern: Exactly what?

Rosencrantz: Exactly why?

Guildenstern: Exactly why what?

Rosencrantz: What?

Guildenstern: Why?

Rosencrantz: Why what exactly?

Guildenstern: WHY IS HE MAD?

Rosencrantz: I DON'T KNOW!

The Player: The old man thinks he's in love with his daughter.

Rosencrantz: Good God. We're out of our depths here.

The Player: No, no, no! He hasn't got a daughter! The old man thinks he's in love with his daughter.

Rosencrantz: The old man is?

The Player: Hamlet... in love... with the old man's daughter... the old man... thinks.

Rosencrantz: Ah.

The Player: We can do rapiers... or rape... or both!

The Player: For a handful of coin I happen to have a private and uncut performance of "The Rape of the Sabine Women," or rather woman, or rather Alfred, and for eight you can participate.

The Player: I love that you brought crazy to the party. You know what I like to do? I bring crazy to Vegas, put them up in my double at the Bellagio, lock up their meds in the hotel safe, feed them cranberry juice, let them just pee out their sanity. By the end of the weekend I got them thinking al-Qaeda has taken over the strip. Their fucking me for freedom.

The Player: I can't believe the cellulite they let in here these days. My man Blumberg's gotta come down on ass like they did on cigarettes.

Robin: I agree. I hate fat chicks!

Mica: Hey, me too.

The Player: To bulimia!