Armand Assante

You love what you do, you are cursed with it, and then you get known for being cursed with it.

The whole industry is so screwed up by economics. It's disgusting to me.

My dream as a youngster was to be like Olivier. To be a great stage actor. To be a great Shakespearean actor. To me that is the Olympics of acting.

Maybe you don't work for seven months a year, but you'll work again. It may be a piece of garbage, so you wear hip boots.

I've got the best deal on Earth. Where else can I sin and know that I'm forgiven for it

I never pursued Hollywood banging my drum, because I was never in a film big enough to do that.

I never pursued a career relentlessly.

I go out there and make a fool of myself. It's inevitable.

I don't champion the idea of being in a Hollywood movie. I never had fun in one of them.

I do not want to act unless I have a a great intimacy with the people I'm working with.

Acting is a total physical, emotional sensation.

I stopped courting Hollywood a long time ago.

I've brought my daughters all over the world-they travel with me. I drag them out of school just to keep the relationship. When I'm home I'm a big-time daddy.

I've worked for 27 years nonstop in theater and films. That's a lot of work.

Like I said earlier, the movie is metaphorical for the world. Today we're seeing so many instances of monumental duplicity, ... I think that's the task, in a way, to show what an architect of duplicity this character is, in his simplicity, forthrightness and morality. It's a strange and wonderful study of how far a horrible lie can be taken in terms of a character.

The Italian gangster thing has become a form of the modern-day Western.

I live a very quiet life, although I'm very urban and a diehard New Yorker.

Literature is air, and I'm suffocating in mediocrity.

It's a blessing and a curse. But it's not always the best situation to be in. As a profession, I don't recommend acting at all.

The only way actors could breathe on the sound stage was through an air regulator. You couldn't get out, ... because the camera crew was literally bolted in. You can't get out you can't go up or down. It really brought home the visceral feeling of what those men were willing to put themselves through.