Quotes

They're all so jealous in Hollywood. It's not enough to have a hit. Your best friend should also have a failure.

I've always been a self-confessed opportunist.

I always thought that the goal in movies was to extinguish disbelief.

The end of the studio system signaled the end of the great screen stars. They were the sort of actors who brought their own charismatic personas to each role they played. Audiences felt as if they knew them immediately every time they watched one of their movies.

Marlon Brando changed everything for actors. After him, everyone wanted to be Marlon. No one wanted to be a type: they all wanted to display versatility in every role. But the brilliance that Marlon had was that he had star personality that shone through in every role.

It's a misconception about acting that it's a practice in pretending to be someone else. It's actually a practice in finding the character within yourself.

They don't have personalities, so they can't be stars. Do me a Tom Cruise impression, do me a Tom Hanks impression.

I made a lot of mistakes when I was successful in the '70s. You know, there's no handbook for success so I couldn't make out what vibe I was picking up. But it's called jealousy, envy and loathing, though they come at you with smiles because they want something from you. So you put on a front of arrogance to cover insecurity.

[to producer Irwin Winkler, recounted in Peter Biskind's book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls"] Remember me? I used to be Peter Bogdanovich.

[when asked why he picked Larry McMurtry's novel "The Last Picture Show" as subject matter] I liked the idea of doing a period piece because I like anything better in the past than in the present. I'm not moved by things that happen in the present, only when I think about them later. Life is too real when it's actually happening.

[on the critical plaudits earned by The Last Picture Show (1971)] I'm very gratified by the reception. It's gone beyond my wildest dreams. To have your picture compared to Citizen Kane (1941) is incredible; certainly it isn't true, but it's nice to have it written.

Filmmakers have a responsibility to the audience and to the work, I wish they felt that responsibility more, especially to what's true in life.

[regarding his trademark neck scarves] I'm just wearing a bandanna; it's not so fancy. Most of the time they are cotton and different sizes. It started when I was shooting The Last Picture Show (1971) in Texas, and I liked wearing it because it made me feel secure. I don't know why. But it feels cozy, and I kept wearing it.

I think one of the reasons younger people don't like older films, films made say before the '60s, is that they've never seen them on a big screen, ever. If you don't see a film on a big screen, you haven't really seen it. You've seen a version of it, but you haven't seen it. That's my feeling, but I'm old-fashioned.

The only formal training I ever did was four years as an actor. When I direct, I think like one of the actors.

It's sad that most film-goers today never saw a movie made before Star Wars (Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)).

Directing is really creating an atmosphere, a particular kind of atmosphere and usually one that is very peculiar to the director. It doesn't necessarily have to be. Some directors have no personality and it shows. But one way or another, what the actors are doing or the crews are doing, they're trying to please the director.

[on making The Last Picture Show (1971)] I hope I'm not repeating what happened to [Orson Welles]. You know, make a successful serious film like this early and then spend the rest of my life in decline.

Saint Jack (1979) and They All Laughed (1981) were two of my best films but never received the kind of distribution they should have.[2006]

[on The Last Picture Show (1971), 2015] We had such a bunch of good actors in that film. [The scene in which] Cloris Leachman [who won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role] throws that coffee pot and yells at Timothy Bottoms - Cloris did it brilliantly. She wanted to rehearse it and I kept saying, "I don't want to rehearse it; I want to see it for the first time when we actually roll." I had learned that idea - to not let the actors show you an emotional scene before they shot it - from John Ford through Peter Bogdanovich. It was Hank Fonda who told me that for the big climactic scene with the mother in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), [Ford] wouldn't let the actors play it for him - he wanted it to be fresh when they did it and of course he used the first take. So I said, "Action!" and she was extraordinary. [But] she said, "I can do it better." I said, "No, you can't; you just won the Oscar." And to this day - Jeff Bridges told me that he [recently] ran into Cloris and that she said, "Oh, I'm so angry at Peter. That was the first take. I could have done it better." And Jeff said: "Oh, Cloris. You won the Oscar!"

[on Paper Moon (1973), 2015] They said, "[John] Huston wants to do this with [Paul] Newman and his daughter, but we'd rather have you." I said, "OK, I'll do this with Ryan [O'Neal] and Tatum O'Neal." But they didn't want them. [Producer] Bob Evans was pissed off at Ryan because Ryan had an affair with Ali [MacGraw] while she was married to Bob on Love Story (1970). And I said, "Bob, I have a hit in the top 10 called What's Up, Doc? (1972) with Ryan O'Neal. How do you explain to your shareholders that you won't do a picture with this megastar?" It was an unarguable point. I think it's one of the audience's favorites of my pictures. People really like that movie. It didn't get great notices originally - it got mixed notices - but it was a big thing with the audience.

[on What's Up, Doc? (1972), 2015] [This] was really the second picture in my career that I styled to a movie star. One was Boris Karloff in Targets (1968) and the second was Barbra Streisand in What's Up, Doc? The entire picture came about because Barbra wanted to do a picture with me. What happened was she saw an early cut of Picture Show and was extremely moved. She said, "I want to do a drama with you." I said, "I just did a drama. I want to do a comedy." I had seen that she could be very, very good. She had a few bad habits that I would be able to fix, but my major feeling was that she was brilliant at comedy - and, as it turned out, she is. She sort of took that for granted - that's why she wanted to do a drama with me, because for her, comedy was fairly easy. She was a joy. She's great in the picture and I love her dearly, I really do. Even though she didn't trust the material, she went along with my humor and we became very good friends and we get along very well - and I have nothing but affection and love for Barbra.

[on Mask (1985), 2015] I made that picture for Dorothy Stratten because she'd been murdered, and in the 10 months I knew her I found that she was very, very interested in The Elephant Man on Broadway. She went to see this production and she was very moved by it. After she was killed I figured it out: Dorothy identified with him because of her beauty - because her beauty was as much of a source of alienation as his ugliness. They came to me with this picture called Mask. I thought it was not a very good script but it surely was an interesting story because it was a true story. And then I remember how Dorothy felt about The Elephant Man and I thought, "Well, I'll make it for her." [We had] a list of actresses for the role of Rusty. Ellen Burstyn and Cloris [Leachman] and Jane Fonda - anybody with a name. About two-thirds of the way through the list, there's Cher. I said, "That's interesting. I can see her [playing] a druggie and riding a motorcycle, and I can't see Jane Fonda doing it. She's too sophisticated." Cher and I didn't get along that well. She sort of irritated me, because she had such a negative attitude. But she's very good in the picture. I don't think I've ever shot more close-ups - she's very good in close-ups and not that good in playing the whole scene through, because she loses the thread of it. So I shot it that way, and she should have won an Oscar.

[on today's comedies, 2015] I don't go to see too many of those, because I saw Knocked Up (2007) which I thought was ridiculous - she would never go with that guy, even if she was dead drunk. It's a movie by people, I guess, who have wish fulfillment issues. A lot of the comedies are based on body fluid jokes or jokes about sperm in your hair. I'm not keen on that kind of comedy.

Red River (1948) was my favorite movie when I was ten.

(On Cary Grant) I always wished he hadn't stopped.

[on "Illegally Yours"] I consider that one to be my penance...for being so difficult with everybody while making "Mask" three years prior.

[on his last conversation with Orson Welles before his death] "I said, 'Jesus, Orson, I feel like I made so many mistakes.' And he said, 'Well, it does seem difficult to go through life without making a great many of them,' which was our way of rekindling our friendship. That was the last time we spoke."

[on the highs and lows of his career] I'm not bitter, I asked for it. Success is very hard. Nobody prepares you for it. You think you're infallible. You pretend you know more than you do. Pride goeth before the fall.