James Woods - biography

“All good actors work the same way.  They just stand there on their own two feet and tell the truth.”

“I can’t say anything bad about Meryl Streep.  And I love to say bad things about people.”

“You can get too easily seduced by Hollywood.  The sun fries your brain, you get a couple of awards - then you want a Rolls-Royce.”

“No matter what it is, if you get 10 people in the business talking about something, you get 10 different opinions, but you know, they’re amazingly well informed.”

“Celebrity - I don’t even know what that means.  Obviously it’s the same basic word as celebration, but I don’t know what’s being celebrated.”

“I’m a pretty quiet guy, but if people want to think of me as a lady killer, I guess that’s good.”

“I’m famous for being nicer to my fans than anyone on the face of the Earth because I figure a) They pay my salary, and b) It’s probably like a big moment in your life to meet somebody so I would say, just come on up.”

“Sergio Leone taught me: less is more.  Working with him was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for eight solid months.  It’s like your first time - it’ll never quite be the same.  Maybe it’ll be better.  But it’ll never be the same.”

“I was able to lean on people for favors and things to help out because their budget was so low.  It was half of what John Travolta’s perk package is on a film.  Our whole budget was half of what his staff makes on a film.”

“The lifeblood of my career has been independent film.”

“We work in an environment where your options are to do, you know, Batman 10, so when you get to do a movie that’s a really great film like this, people really step up to the plate and enjoy it.”

“John Lennon - that man never did anything he didn’t really want to do, and that impresses me.”

“Joseph Wambaugh, he has real integrity.”

“A rotten, gold-plated sewer of a town.  Guys who can’t tie their own shoe-laces are driving around Beverly Hills in 80,000 dollar cars - ‘Hey, look at me, I’m great!’ They’re not great.  They’re stupid and arrogant.  Many times, they wouldn’t even see me for movies.  If California fell into the ocean and I was the only actor left, they’d do a talent search in Paraguay.”

“Do you think I want to be the one lone voice against the Hollywood liberal establishment?  It’s not going to do me any good.”

“My attitude about Hollywood is that I wouldn’t walk across the street to pull one of those executives out of the snow if he was bleeding to death.  Not unless I was paid for it.  None of them ever did me any favors.”

“I don’t care what they say to the press.  I’ve never met an actor in my life who doesn’t have an acceptance speech going through his head every day.”

“The press is like a big bass - you just stick a hook in their mouth and they’ll take it.”

“Producers are assholes.  How’s that for a quote?  They’re schmucks, they’re deal-makers.  They know all the tricks of the trade but they don’t know the trade itself.  Producers know how to steal money, how to put together packages.  They’re liars and thieves.  They have no value in life.  They don’t believe in anything.”

“It’s not difficult to lie around naked on top of Debbie Harry all day, you know what I mean?  Certain instincts take over after a while and make the scene really play.”

“I’m absolutely gonna win it, because I’m ruthless.  I sit at the poker table and my job is to destroy people.”

“Look, just go sit at the card table with the rest of the kids and let the adults run the country.”

“So you can say whatever you want and quote me however you want about politics and make the next payday, and that’s fine because I’m making that deal with you, but just mention the movie along the way, OK?”

“Sometimes the way you respond to horrific, evil deeds is the measure of one’s self as a man, as a nation, as people, as a community.”

James Woods has appeared in the following films:
The Visitors (1972)
The Way We Were (1973)
The Gambler (1974)
Night Moves (1975)
Alex and the Gypsy (1976)
The Choirboys (1977)
The Onion Field (1979)
Eyewitness (1981)
Split Image (1982)
Against All Odds (1984)
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Joshua Then and Now (1985)
Cat’s Eye (1985)
Salvador (1986)
Best Seller (1987)
The Boost (1988)
True Believer (1989)
Immediate Family (1989)
The Hard Way (1991)
Chaplin (1992)
Diggstown (1992)
Straight Talk (1992)
The Getaway (1994)
The Specialist (1994)
Curse of the Starving Class (1994)
Casino (1995)
Nixon (1995)
For Better or Worse (1995)
Killer: A Journal of Murder (1995)
Ghosts from the Past (1996)
Contact (1997)
Hercules (1997)
Kicked in the Head (1997)
Another Day in Paradise (1998)
Any Given Sunday (1999)
Play It to the Bone (1999)
The General’s Daughter (1999)
True Crime (1999)
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)
Recess: School’s Out (2001)
John Q (2002)
Stuart Little 2 (2002)
Northfork (2003)
This Girl’s Life (2003)
The Easter Egg Adventure (2004)
Be Cool (2005)
Pretty Persuasion (2005)
End Game (2006)
Surf’s Up (2007)
Straw Dogs (2011)