I think that’s what distinguishes Schmidt, really. In the movies now, so much of what is appealing to an audience is the dramatic or has to do with science fiction, and Schmidt is simply human. There’s no melodrama; there’s no device, It’s just about a human being.
I don’t have any plugs or tucks but people do what they want. I look at it as mutilation.
If men are honest, everything they do and everywhere they go is for a chance to see women.
Decent people shouldn’t live here. They’d be happier some place else.
When it’s over for a woman, it’s over. You’re not getting an appeal.
I would never complain about my life, even though I really would like to have a mate.
Early on, if I was alone two three nights in a row, I’d start writing poems about suicide.
When you look at life retrospectively you rarely regret anything that you did, but you might regret things that you didn’t do.
Well, a girlfriend once told me never to fight with anybody you don’t love.
I’m not hard to get along with.
There’s no point dwelling on what might or could have been. You just have to go forward.
You are more thoughtful because you don’t act as quickly anymore. When I turned 70 it was the first time I felt young for my age. Fifty dropped on me like a ton of bricks – there is something about that number – but when 70 came along I felt good about it.
I’ve been too many places. I’m like the bad penny.
I know I can act. There aren’t too many other jobs I know how to do.
Age is the first limitation on roles that I’ve ever had to encounter, and I hit that awhile ago.
Because of the way the business is structured, I have sometimes turned down scripts that I might otherwise have accepted had I known who was directing them.
I can’t hit on women in public any more. I didn’t decide this; it just doesn’t feel right at my age.
Almost everybody’s happy to be a fool for love.
I sort of understood that when I first started: that you shouldn’t repeat a success. Very often you’re going to, and maybe the first time you do, it works. And you love it. But then you’re trapped.
I suppose I can do more for a script as an actor than as a writer – in the film sense.