Tim Roth Quotations

Well, I think first it was rare for me to do anything that had any kind of a romantic note to it.

I can't do anything else. So if this falls through, I'm screwed.

I'm sick of very white teeth and lots of gymnasium practice. I'm bored, you know, send in the next one. I wanted a real man that I could believe was my brother, my father, you know, my next-door neighbor - a real person.

Doing comedy for film is always a challenge because you are in the hands of the editor after the fact. I am hoping I can do some more soon, I enjoy doing comedy.

I have come close to producing films. But generally by the time they hit the screen, there's about 50 people with producer credits, so what's the point. I usually find scripts I like with no money attached and take them to producers that I know and try to raise finance.

Ilike ideas writers have that I might not have written. Writers are there for a reason... to write for me.

Everyone is an abused child, if you think about what governments do.

You read a script and its based on 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction', and it goes right in the bin.

If you meet somebody who's spent any length of time in prison, you don't let your guard down. Ever. And really, that's what that was about-if you open up too much, you're asking to get your teeth kicked in.

Bring back dueling, I say. Drive-by sword fight.

I get invited to an awful lot of Jewish functions.

There just seems to be more acceptance now of... other kinds of British films, than the picture-postcard ones.

When you know youre whoring it hurts. I have kids. I'm not going to run down an actor for doing this.

I don't care to analyze acting. On the other hand there is a fascination because distributors are putting out British films. You get films here with great performances you'll never see again. Why compare. We should go after the businessmen.

I started off on stage because it was the only work I could get. I haven't been back for 11 years. I think any stage experience is good experience, as far as being an actor is concerned.

I think every director has a different take, some are good, some are bad. The directors you get on best with sometimes don't make the best films, so who's to say who is right.

There is less pressure as a character actor. It generally means that you will be acting for all of your life, which is my intention. It is not my intention to just be a rich and famous person, that would be pretty boring.

The first role I ever did... I played a Nazi skinhead.

I miss my family, and I like being a tourist when I go back.

A character I would love to play is Iago, from Othello.

I'd seen musicians act, and it scares me. And they make more money than me.

How would you compare Polanski or Kubrick? I try not to do any comparisons.

I will watch everything that Cary Grant did, or Kubrick made or Bergman.

My dad was a Communist Party member who fought for his country.

The more varied the characters, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

One of the guys who worked at the Ape School became my stunt double so we just kept working on different things and just play around.

I didn't want to make soundtrack film or a gun movie. These are the reasons I wanted to make a movie. I wanted to make an adult movie.

I love Charleston. That was one of the best experiences I have had making a film. I'm back to Carolina to do my next film.

Some jobs, which would otherwise have been lost in the industry, have not been lost because of NAFTA.

My mentors were my editiors. You come from location work with a million people and questions, and you get into the editing room, and its two people.

British acting schools are diferent. There is a cultural difference. Americans, Africans, British, I'm not sure we share a language.

Before I started, I worried about what I was going to say to the actors. It kept me awake at night. Sometimes you get the questions wrong.

Acting is a short, sharp shock, and then I have a two-year break to do some directing. I mean you have to stop-OK, be serious about it-so I've put the kids through school.

You read a script and its based on Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and it goes right in the bin.

Americans have bought lock, stock, and barrel the Jeremy Irons-Kenneth Branagh England. And it's fake. It's an absolute con. Merchant Ivory? Bollocks.

I try and take the family with me everywhere I can. It's getting harder the more kids I have. But celibacy sucks.

For me, acting's just great fun. A lot more fun than making sculptures, so that's what I wanted to do. It wasn't any great calling-maybe years later, when I'm 60 or whatever, I'll pretend it was, who knows?! But acting is just the most fun I could ever possibly have in my life... and it still is.

It looks like Legacy got a really good deal on that land.

Television has changed. The very nature of it is not even television anymore.

I like the idea of experimenting with different kinds of formats, and I think you've got to keep on your toes and keep changing.

The only thing I won't do is theater.

I'm so scared of doing theater. I've got stage fright, although they keep asking me to come back.

Any show in its first season is going to probably have some growing pains.

I have a bad time between jobs because I'm always convinced I'll never work again. I think it may be an English thing, this fear of unemployment.

Doing TV is a different kind of language.

Certainly coming to America has been extraordinary.

I love the idea of messing around with different mediums.

Now, people can watch the entire first series over a period that would probably take you a couple of nights.

Mostly, people watch their shows online and they watch them in a block. They don't have to tolerate the commercials, and they also don't have to wait another week. People binge watch. It's interesting.

A good part of why I never went back to England was part of that, I didn't want to be in those sort of flowery films. But I think it's a nice change of pace-I don't know how long it'll go for. There will always be the Merchant-Ivory/Kenneth Branagh movies, but there's something else now-really, it's always been there but the Americans getting to see it makes all the difference.

The better the writing, the easier it gets.

I believe there is also a Tim Roth Monastery.

There just seems to be more acceptance now of other kinds of British films, than the picture-postcard ones.