Capote Quotations

Somebody said the other day, at the end of the movie, you feel like Capote committed a crime, and that's exactly right. That's why the film works so well. You really have this sense that he's the one who committed the crime, and I think deep down inside, that's how he felt, too. That's something he could never come to terms with.

The movie shows how much of his life Capote put into 'In Cold Blood' and the toll it took on him. He made it a literary phenomenon and it was a hard act to follow. No matter what he did, he could never top it.

If you have that kind of intimacy alongside ambition, ultimately it's going to leave an incredibly tragic impression on his psyche and spirit. He paid a huge price to write one of the great books of the 20th century. Capote didn't go to Kansas. Kansas reached out to New York and grabbed Capote. The minute he met Perry Smith, it was inevitable that these two men were going to die, one literally and one figuratively, because the identification they shared was too deep. The minute he got Perry to open up about his own life, and he learned they were both orphans, they were both abandoned children, he sees his muse, and that's the beginning of the end. Kansas sprung a trap on him.

Too many people only thought of Capote as this odd, little man who showed up on talk shows during the '70s. This movie helps people remember that he was a very serious artist and writer, not just some self-absorbed celebrity.

Philip insisted it would be wrong for him to break down and be so emotional. But, of course, when we rolled camera, he proceeded to do exactly what he'd argued against. It's what makes his performance feel so real. When he entered a scene, he was no longer thinking like an actor. He was thinking like Truman Capote would think.

Capote was an enormously and dangerously ambitious, talented, conflicted guy who really concealed himself from the public. He was at once a very public figure and a very private figure. And this is a movie that sort of peels back the public mask and gets into the heart of darkness.

Capote is one of those people who represents something larger than himself. I think that his ambition, his kind of success, and the downfall that followed are very contemporary.

Capote had these dueling motivations for being involved with this guy. He genuinely was fascinated with (Perry Smith), but he also saw him as a ticket to writing this great book.

I'm really happy that I didn't see Capote until after we wrapped because I probably just would have been daunted because he was so remarkable in that movie.

Truman Capote was a pop figure, but it wasn't until he went on David Susskind's show and had that extraordinary voice and manner that everyone could imitate, that he really took off as a figure.