Dennis Quaid
Dennis Quaid
Dennis William Quaid is an American actor known for a wide variety of dramatic and comedic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s, his career rebounded in the 1990s after he overcame an addiction to drugs and an eating disorder. Some of his notable credits include Breaking Away, The Right Stuff, Wyatt Earp, The Rookie, The Day After Tomorrow, Traffic, Vantage Point, Footloose, Frequency, The Parent Trap, Yours, Mine & Ours and Soul Surfer. For his role in Far...
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth9 April 1954
CityHouston, TX
I've always considered myself a character actor. That's the way I was trained, really.
I try to be eclectic in my choice of films. If I've done anything that's intentional in my career, it's to try to do as many different types of characters and as many different types of genres of movies that I can.
When I was in my mid-20s, I traveled a lot around the world, and the question I had for everyone I talked to was, 'What is your conception of God?' I found that everybody basically felt the same: God is within and without. He's in everything.
One thing I've really never had a problem with was memorizing lines. Most of the time I don't memorize the lines until we're on the set shooting the scene.
When I choose a movie, I'll ask myself: 'Is this a movie I want to see?'
'Legion' was a lot of fun to shoot. It was a real unique apocalypse scenario that takes place in a diner out in the desert. Very much like a drive-in B-movie, but in a good way.
In aviation they have auto pilot and color radar and a lot of other instrumentation that is a backup for pilots. It's really brought the incidents of plane crashes way down. Same thing ought to happen in the medical industry, I think.
There's no way that I could do a 9 to 5 job. There's no way. I was not cut out for that. You come in and you work for three months on the one job. They say, 'Great,' you know, and you're on to the next one - and you never even got fired. It's wonderful.
I guess I could say I'm an actor, which I am, but that sounds like I'm putting down being a movie star, which, let's face it, is what I've become to many people. For myself, I'm a guy who was very insecure from about age 14 until the day I hit my 30th birthday.
It's hard for two actors to be together. Take the traveling, for instance. It winds up being a long distance relationship, all the time, because one's working here and one's working there, or one's staying at home and one's off someplace else.
My real-life athletic career was not very much. I played Little League baseball.
In my early teen years, I wanted to become a vet. That was my plan. I worked as a veterinarian's assistant for a couple of summers.
I love doing independent films, but it's very hard to make a living that way.
I really want to see the Cubs in the World Series. I really do.