Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkinis an American actor, director, comedian, musician and singer. With a film career spanning more than 55 years, Arkin is known for his performances in Popi, Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, Little Miss Sunshine, and Argo...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth26 March 1934
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Alan Arkin quotes about
Marriage requires searing honesty at all costs. I learned that from my third wife.
Two-thirds of American movies are extensions of commercials -- they tell you how to feel and they tell you how to think -- rather than letting you figure it out on your own.
I played guitar. I've always considered myself an actor, but I wasn't making a living as an actor. So I was in a couple of folk groups that managed to keep me in underwear and burritos.
I don't think it does the audience any good to know what I do to prepare. It keeps it more of a surprise. I don't feel like it has to be a mystery.
Improvisation sometimes seemed more like jazz than acting, like verbal jazz, with the actors playing a theme back and forth, and then introducing another theme, incorporating it, somehow trying to work their way all together to a meaning of some kind, or at least a conclusion.
I gotta keep busy. I'm not happy unless I'm working on two, three things.
Is it possible to have an endless series of successes without falling on our faces? I suppose it is, but I think it would entail doing the same things over and over again without taking chances, without taking risks or exploring our limits, without finding out what we can and can't do.
"What I've learned about teaching is to refer back to the root of that word, which is educo, which means "to pull from." Education does not mean jamming information into somebody's head. Rather, it's that ancient idea that all knowledge is within us; to teach is to help somebody pull it out of themselves."
Either you're growing or you're decaying; there's no middle ground. If you're standing still, you're decaying.
You know what Andy Warhol's sole contribution to this country has been? He made Campbell's Soup a household word.
You can begin to see an amalgamation of cultures, the real beginning of one world. Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine a Cockney singing group with a Southern Negro style and Indian and electronic music. I wonder if people have even noticed what a tremendous cultural signal the Beatles are.
Things are never going to turn out how you think they will.