Jeremy Piven Quotations

But there are other roles that people have not seen me do that I have done on the stage.

I'm a musician who's at the end of his rope who's been addicted to coke for a while,

I have a place in Chicago and I get there as much as I can... The city is so unbelievably beautiful. It's one of the greatest cities on the planet. My heart beats differently when I'm in Chicago. It slows down and I feel more at ease.

The biggest compliment to me is that guys really approach me and they have a connection with me, so there must be something I'm doing that is authentic, otherwise they wouldn't connect with me so strongly. It's a real compliment.

I'm not a pretty boy who came to town and burst out of the gate, which is a good thing, because if I was, I probably wouldn't have been good enough then. I probably wouldn't have lasted. So I was very lucky not to be pretty.

I never made more than $50 doing any play in Chicago. That was the way I grew up.

I'm attracted to flawed characters, ... They're fun and interesting to play and the rest comes from that.

I had never really been around cards.

I grew up watching PBS and wanting to be a part of it, just like HBO.

I'm in the middle of just trying to impress my nieces, who think I work for the bus company because they saw a picture of me on a bus. I did an independent movie with Mark Pellington (I Melt with You), and then tried to impress my nieces again, by starring opposite Miley Cyrus (in So Undercover). So, basically I'm just trying to get some respect from my family.

For the record, if you're not a stage actor, climbing onto Broadway and tackling something like David Mamet is not an easy thing to do.

With me, growing up in a theater family and having them be so supportive, from the jump, and being a part of this theater community where the brass ring is working, wherever that is, and then to play a character where he's not really concerned with that and is really just concerned with the monetary aspect of the job, and then to be identified with someone who is the antithesis of your energy and where you come from, has been a very interesting and surreal ride.

You're trying to figure out a way to go back in time and spend more time with your father. Who wouldn't want to do that?

Robert Rodriguez is a genius, and I'm a huge fan of his.

There are so many great directors that I haven't worked with and that I would love to work with.

When you try to worry about missteps and all that kind of stuff, that's not the healthiest way to be.

If someone mistakes your kindness for weakness, that's their fault - not yours. And it's OK to be a decent human being in this life.

I'm one of these people who would rather show you than tell you through the performance.

I've been a fan of hip-hop for a really long time, and I still am.

It sounds clichéd, but I think the greatest lesson is to not take things personally.

I've been on the stage my entire life as an actor.

I have been drumming my whole life.

I wrote a script and I've been whispering in director's ears for a really long time and I'd love to direct.

HBO does something that most networks don't do which is give a show a chance to find their voice.

I do yoga. I've been doing yoga for over 20 years and I love it.

When you play a character with power and energy, people lock into that and go, "Oh, this must be the guy."

I grew up in the theatre.

I'm acting with the best actors in the world.

My goal, everyone's goal is to get better at what we do.

If you are an incredibly reactive person and you are working on your lowest level, and if you continuously give into your dark side and are angry, and screaming, and breaking things, and you do that for hours and hours on end, you are going to be incredibly exhausted. That's just the way life is.

When you do a television show in the States, you get the pilot, and then it's the great unknown. That's the way it is. It's this great leap of faith. It's the Russian roulette of art.

I think people are gravitating towards these period dramas because I think they're looking for a simpler time.

Mercury poisoning sounds like a rich man's disease . . . like something you might get from the leather seats in your Lamborghini.

If masturbation is a crime then I should be on death row.

I come from a theater family and a theater background, and I come from a philosophy that you respect the space you occupy when you work and you put everything that you have into something.

I'm not a boy now. I'm a man, I hope. I hope I've had my artistic bar mitzvah somewhere.

I'm just mystified and fascinated by women, and I'm still single. Hence all of that, and the fact that I celebrate them so much, I understand that I'm unevolved at this exact moment to share my life with one. I wouldn't inflict that upon anyone yet. But, I'm getting closer.

You know the Greeks didnt write obituaries, they only asked one question after a man died, ‘Did he have passion?’

Sometimes in life, we have to continue to learn the same lesson until it sticks.

Unless an entire row of people got up in the middle of a performance and left the theater in disgust, I felt as though I hadn't done my job.

I'm a stage actor. That is what I do.

The stage is my love, it's where I started and where I do my best work.

One of the great things going on right now is social media and you get a real sense, immediately, about what people are feeling and thinking.

The Dalai Lama was once asked for his favorite chant, and he said it was better not to have a favorite anything, which I think is a great thought.

One of the great things that you should never do that I learned from John Malkovich is to never judge your characters.

I have a place in Chicago and I get there as much as I can. The city is so unbelievably beautiful. It's one of the greatest cities on the planet. My heart beats differently when I'm in Chicago. It slows down and I feel more at ease.

I want to be radical on the inside, but not on the outside.

I feel, as a person, very uninteresting.

It's your job as an actor to fill out the blanks. I love doing that. To fill in the bones.

All I've done is work... I arrived in Los Angeles in my early 20s and I've been pounding the pavement ever since.

Everyone's journey is completely different.

For so much of my career I've been trying to find little things and make something out of it.

I was in a play directed by my father, and I was doing a fight scene, and the choreography went haywire, and I flew backward over a chair and ripped my thumb all the way to my wrist and had to have surgery to sew up all the tendons in there.

Yet the reality is that I'm a stage actor from the Midwest - probably the opposite of a shark agent.

When I was growing up, I was always on stage but I loved other things.

You can't make people who you want them to be. That was a hard lesson for me.

We all have so many different elements inside of us and we're not all one thing.

We all deal with issues of time. The first thing you do in the morning is look at the clock to see what time it is.

The reality is that I'm an actor from the Midwest and I was 40 movies into it before I started 'Entourage'.

Sometimes - this is a tough one - not everyone can handle the truth. Sometimes you have to take a beat. But if you can take that beat, and take the high road, it'll serve you in the long run.

John Cusack and I have been friends since childhood, and the fact that we're in so many films together is, no pun intended, serendipitous.

I'm not a video game guy. I would rather throw around a football.

I'm just a stage actor from Chicago.

I don't know if there's a lot of patience anymore. I think that could serve a lot of people.

I relished the opportunity to be on Broadway... It's the holy grail for people like me.

I never made more than $50 doing any play in Chicago. That was the way I grew up.

I like to box. It's a great release.

People need to know you have to walk through that rejection, and it's only going to fuel you. If you can somehow look at it like it's a gift, you're just going to regroup, and work harder, and go deeper. So just embrace it.

I grew up on the stage, where you just throw yourself into projects and don't get in your own way.

Well, here's all you need to know. Classes, nothing before 11. Beer, its your best friend, you drink a lot of it. Women, you're a freshman, so its pretty much out of the question. Will you have a car? ... Someone on your hall will, find them and make friends with them on the first day.

What's this? You're wearing the shirt of the band you're going to see? Don't be that guy.