Bruce Dern Quotations

If the film isn't in some way going to study behavior then I'm not interested, but the reason why I'm not interested in directing in film is that it would take me, to be as good an artist as I feel I am an actor, it would take me another 35 just to conquer...

I'm totally sports-oriented; I relate a lot of my career and everything to sports.

In all American professional sports you start on a certain level and you have to work your way up through a farm system. It's really the same in acting.

I always made a living as an actor when I came to California. I never had to do anything else.

Since I've started to star in pictures I have always managed to retain my singularity of purpose when I got into the business, which was to be an artist, as an actor, more than anything else. But to get the certain kind of role you want, you have to be in a certain position in the business and it's dog-eat-dog and it gets very hairy and you can lose your point of view sometimes.

I'm a big wilderness, mountain guy. I love to go up in the mountains and I can just sit for hours and just look at the mountains.

I'm not good at living in the grim places...when we did Gatsby, I lived in Claridges, that's where I wanted to live. I can't live in grimness and then go play a classy human being.

I'm not a good reader. I had to take remedial reading in school. I was a slow reader and therefore it's tough for me to stay interested in things long enough, I've read, probably, since college maybe 10 books, which is disgusting.

From nine on I was forced to camp every summer. Not a volunteer. I played with the wrong kids so they made me go to camp to straighten me out.

The big reason why I became an actor in the first place was to communicate. I never acted in high school...I was desperate to communicate.