Cassel Quotes & Sayings

People look up to Jacques Mesrine as if he were a Robin Hood, stealing from the rich, but he never gave anything back to anybody. — Vincent Cassel

I think American audiences like gangster movies. It's part of the culture. — Vincent Cassel

I don't really shop any more. I only do it when I have to. I think it is very overrated. — Vincent Cassel

You don't have to protect these people, Cassel. I am these people. — Holly Black

It's always interesting to see a director trying different things, and on top of it, doing it right each and almost every time. — Vincent Cassel

Good guys need to be a little dirty otherwise they're just boring. — Vincent Cassel

Perfection is not just about control, it is also about letting go. — Vincent Cassel

God, I hate you," she says. "So much. Why do boys think that it will be better to lie and tell a girl how much they loved her and how they only dumped her for her own good? That they only tried to rearrange her brain for her own good? Does it make you feel better, Cassel? Does it? Because from my perspective, it really sucks. — Holly Black

My father is best known for his light comedies, and I'm best known for crazy bad guys with short tempers. — Vincent Cassel

I think life is short, and you can't spend time doing things just to be on set to reassure yourself that people are not going to forget about you. — Vincent Cassel

You're a liar, Cassel Sharpe. A lying liar who lies. — Holly Black

I heard you've been having some problems with your girlfriend." Headmistress Northcutt says.
"No," I say. "Not at all." Audrey broke up with me after the winter holiday, exhausted by my moodiness. It's impossible to have problems with a girlfriend who's no longer mine. — Holly Black

I've had people ask me to come and work for them. I went to Vienna and did three scenes in a movie for a guy that I met at a retrospective of Cassavetes films. It's a great way to travel, to meet people, to see different countries and cultures. — Seymour Cassel

I can't tell you how sorry I am. About everything. About your poor cat, about that horrendous funeral my dad concocted, and really about my lunatic father in general. I'm sorry you had to move in next to a family of complete weirdos. I don't know how you've put up with all of it. I mean, you never even complained about the busted purple coffin we had sitting in the middle of our front lawn. — Emily Cassel

Blood, especially fake, and guns, this is bullshit. It works in the movie, but on set it doesn't work for me. — Vincent Cassel

The people who know my work like my work. And that's great. — Seymour Cassel

My grandma raised her eyes to the heavens, put her hand on her heart and sighed dramatically. "Dear God, one day let my family love me for my soul instead of my remarkably elegant possessions, my shoe box full of cash, and my outstanding high-interest-rate back account... — Emily Cassel

All I ever cared about was actors - toughest job in this business. — Seymour Cassel

People ask me where I live most of the time, and it's kind of complicated for me to answer, because I'm not really sure. It's somewhere in between London, Rome, Paris, and Rio. — Vincent Cassel

To work with somebody you love makes filming faster, more fun. — Vincent Cassel

I wanted to be an actor to act, and now, being an actor, you have to dress up, you have to be nice, you have to be smart, you have to be sexy, you have to be ready. — Vincent Cassel

My grandma leaned out the backseat window, pointing at the cops. "Just so you know, I had no part in this! Ask anyone. They'll all tell you: I hate crime."
"Well, we won't mention to them how you 'forgot' to pay for those slippers at Wal-Mart, now, will we?" my mom hissed. — Emily Cassel

With independent film, simply because they don't have the money to make a big-budget film, they're forced to make a story that's important to them, that they would like to see on film, a personal story that people can relate to, about people, where you can see the love of the characters. — Seymour Cassel

As a kid, I remember wearing a checkered suit and appearing on-stage in the routines worked out by the 'baggy pants' comedians. — Seymour Cassel

I am a performer; that's what I like to do. — Seymour Cassel

I didn't really want to die; I just wasn't ready to live. I was merely surviving ... one reluctant heartbeat at a time. — Wendi Cassel

The minute I started being recognised, I became much more discreet. — Vincent Cassel

I've always loved the idea of changing myself, wearing costumes and disguises. It takes you back to being a kid, to dressing up. — Vincent Cassel

You're a rose, the perfect flower. I'm a carnation, just a cheaper substitute. — Wendi Cassel

People pretend to be nice, people pretend to be smooth, and polite and everything, but this is only an appearance, because the way we're built as human beings is only in paradox and contradictions. — Vincent Cassel

I love French style from the Thirties and Forties. French movie stars like Jean Gabin and Yves Montand had so much natural, effortless style. — Vincent Cassel

Now that I've started touching her, I can't seem to stop. Like somehow the language of my hands will tell her all the things I don't know how to say out loud. — Holly Black

We're all dying, Cassel. It's just that some of us are dying faster than others. — Holly Black

The whole idea of a festival to me is that filmmakers get to interact. You see someone strolling, you get to meet them and tell them you like their work, you admire their story. — Seymour Cassel

Women? I'm still working on the subject. I haven't finished my studies. I would say I'm so happy that they're around. This is the salt and pepper of life. This is what makes me wake up in the morning - even more than work, really. — Vincent Cassel

I used to be more self-conscious about style because when you're younger, you want to exist, you want to show everything you do. — Vincent Cassel

I wait for something good or something that will be fun. But they've got to pay me if they want me to work. — Seymour Cassel

And now I have a big house, nice clothes and I travel in first class and I love it, so maybe it's time to enjoy being a star. — Vincent Cassel

It's now or never. This is simple to say, but then to live like that is not easy at all, I'm sorry. You have to be aware enough so that you can see situations as they pass in front of you and be able to catch the instant, whatever it is. Many times, you just don't see the moment when you were yawning and then it's too late. — Vincent Cassel

I was thinking of going to London drama schools or to New York, because France didn't accommodate the things I wanted to do in film. — Vincent Cassel

Coming from Paris, I'd really like to live in Rio. I think it's gotten better. It's not as violent. The economy is better. The middle class is rising. — Vincent Cassel

'Shadows' wasn't so difficult to get made. — Seymour Cassel

I'm more attracted to the bad guys. Why? Because in real life, I don't know any good guys. I know okay guys. I know polite guys. I know people who can control themselves. — Vincent Cassel

When you have a bunch of scripts that you have to read, the less you have, the better it is, because otherwise, everything is already planned and I think that's a terrible feeling. — Vincent Cassel

I feel like the so-called bad guys are never totally bad. I guess it's the closest thing I can do to reality: people act nice but nobody really is nice. We all have to balance that with something dark. — Vincent Cassel

Cinema is entertainment, and people go to the movies because they want to feel good and forget about everything. — Vincent Cassel

I always go in with the feeling that I'm gonna have a good time in what I'm doing. I entertain myself when I perform. If I do that, then I can see the other performers enjoying my character. — Seymour Cassel

The thing is, as an actor, I get bored a little bit. I love to act. And between action and cuts, when you work for somebody great, it's wonderful and I still love it. The moment where you create, that instant is still magic to me. But, all the rest, I get bored with it - all the waiting, and the fact that you have to make appearances, that you have to share your life. — Vincent Cassel

I worked with young directors all my life, only young directors. — Vincent Cassel

But the goal of Zen Housekeeping is not to have a home that is perfect. It is to embrace the process of keeping the house - one perfect moment at a time. — Lauren Cassel Brownell

It doesn't matter how beautifully a film is photographed. The acting tells your story. It's what people relate to. If you don't believe the characters, it doesn't work. — Seymour Cassel

If kids really made all the parents better, there wouldn't be crazy kids in the world. — Vincent Cassel

I have learned that acting is not about beauty. — Vincent Cassel

I don't think France is a racist country, I really don't, but we do still have many problems with our immigrant past, and there's a shame that goes with that, that works both ways, in the host and in the post-immigrant generation. — Vincent Cassel

Yes. The way people behave, the paradoxes, the contradictions. All these things we have to live with and still pretend that everything is only black or white. That, I think, is the most interesting thing in human nature. The fact that we have to do one thing and pretend something else. That's when it becomes very interesting. If you can literally speak the way you feel, then it's not interesting anymore. It's when you have to lie that it becomes interesting. — Vincent Cassel

Independent film is film that has thought in it. There's no independent thought in studio films. It's collective thought. — Seymour Cassel

'Black Swan' was absolutely unbelievable. I had always dreamed of working with Darren Aronofsky, and Natalie Portman, Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel. The entire cast was really a dream cast, and it was amazing to work with these powerhouse women that I've just admired for so many years. — Ksenia Solo

Many people came out and said, 'Boy I'd love to make a film that way.' Well, borrow some money, get some people together - you can get people to work for nothing, just treat them right, treat them as human beings, not stars, give them all an equal share, make them feel a part of what they're doing. There's no big secret to it. — Seymour Cassel

Cassel, she said, you want to know how to be the most charming guy anyone's ever met? Remind them of their favorite person. Everyone's favorite person is their own damn self. — Holly Black

She says that what you did was a cry for help."
"It was," I say. "That's why I was yelling 'Heeeelp!' I don't really go in for subtlety. — Holly Black

My mother worked in the old Minsky's troupe, which toured the country in the golden age of burlesque theatre. — Seymour Cassel

It hurts to think of her, but I can't stop. It ought to hurt.
After all, hell is supposed to be hot. — Holly Black

I ran away from three different boarding schools before joining a circus school, and eventually I became an actor. The only thing I learned at boarding school was never to send my child to one. — Vincent Cassel

There's only so much you can control in life. — Vincent Cassel

The minute your parents die, you stop fighting them. I realized the more I changed my face for films, the more I looked like him. I always liked to disguise myself because I was trying to run away from his image. But all that is not worth it. — Vincent Cassel

If the guy behind the camera is not good, the pictures are bad. It's still you, and it's the same lines and everything, but it doesn't work. — Vincent Cassel

I'm producing more, but I think to direct, one has to have a burning desire, and that's not me. I'd rather do something else. — Vincent Cassel

Can you really cook meth in a hotel coffeepot?" - Cassel
"Sure," Jones says, looking into his cup thoughtfully.
Guess Mom was right about one thing. — Holly Black

I really like romantic comedies and light movies and everything but I think - I don't know where it comes from - but when you're doing violent movies, you're closer to reality. — Vincent Cassel

You can't escape from what you are. — Vincent Cassel

I really enjoy being an actor! — Vincent Cassel

The only person standing in your way is you. — Vincent Cassel

You are the best kind of killer, Cassel Sharpe, the kind that never has blood on his hands. The kind that never has to sicken at the sight of what he's done, or come to like it too much. — Holly Black

Sam: You know what I wish?
Cassel: What?
Sam: That someone would covert my bed into a robot that would fight other bed robots to the death for me. — Holly Black

Cronenberg's a lot of fun, and that a lot of people don't know watching his movies. He doesn't take himself seriously. He's still reinventing himself. — Vincent Cassel

We were all used to Dad's little show-off sessions, and though they were never worthy of excitement, we always tried to humor him. (Last weekend he'd called us out to the lawn to see what a big pile of dandelions he'd weeded.) — Emily Cassel

I did direct two short movies. I learned many things, and one of the things I learned was that I am not a director. It has to be visceral, and it's not for me. I feel much more comfortable acting. — Vincent Cassel

There's something about her - Cassel, I have met many evil men and women in my life. I have made deals with them, drank with them. I have done things that I myself have difficulty reconciling - terrible things. But I have never known anyone like your mother. She is a person without limits - or if she has any, she hasn't found them yet. She never needs to reconcile anything. — Holly Black

The idea of telling a story in reverse destabilises your ordinary moral reactions. That's one of the points of art - to challenge your preconceptions. — Vincent Cassel

I wear a lot of wigs as Jacques Mesrine. He'd wear multiple wigs and take them off one at a time to rob three banks in one hour. — Vincent Cassel

It's all performing; that's what we do in life. We talk, we look, and we hear, and we listen. Your life is a performance. — Seymour Cassel

There is this idea that it's very different from the French point of view to work in America blah, blah, blah. But I think it's different from one person to the other, not from one country to the other. — Vincent Cassel

If you're an actor, and you're selfish and not strong, it's difficult to maintain a good personal life or a solid career, and I was selfish and had a lot of anger that went way back. — Seymour Cassel

I didn't have many girlfriends in my youth. I was an active young man, jumping from one girl to the next, but never with anyone for more than three or four months. — Vincent Cassel

I was born in Detroit, then shortly after I was born, I went on the road with my mother, who performed with Minsky's, a variety show that toured around the U.S. doing five shows a day. — Seymour Cassel

There's nothing quite as funny as someone else's misery - Cassel Sharpe — Holly Black

I always compare human beings to animals. It's a nice way to figure out who they are. — Vincent Cassel

They say the day you lose your parents, you start to look like them. — Vincent Cassel

I'm a little angry in life. — Vincent Cassel

There are beauty icons that I can never be like, sorta like a Gena Rowlands - I'll never have that look. I love Giulietta Masina, the great Fellini actress. But I'm probably more Seymour Cassel. Or somewhere between Lou Reed and Nora Ephron? — Natasha Lyonne

I come from an acting family, my father was an actor, and I had to fight my way and just create my own identity. — Vincent Cassel

When you see violence in movies in general, it's very quick and painless, which isn't what it's like. — Vincent Cassel

Working with David Cronenberg or Darren Aronofsky or even Steven Soderbergh isn't really like a typical Hollywood movie. These are true artists, and have a certain amount of freedom when they work, and they're more like independent filmmakers making their way through big studios. — Vincent Cassel

I was a little ham and was a very open kid, probably because I was around adults all the time. That also forced me to grow up fast, and I learned at an early age about how people lie and deceive each other. — Seymour Cassel

When eventually I started to act a bit more, I realised that circus school had taught me something that a lot of actors my age didn't have: physicality. They didn't know how to move. Acting is not all about talking. There is something animalistic about it. — Vincent Cassel

Neither of us are workaholics. I think the key thing is to accept that if you only exist through what you do, then you become what you do, and this is very wrong. — Vincent Cassel

I remember being a teenager and seeing Seymour Cassel across a crowded room and being incredibly star struck, and not having the courage to say, 'Hello.' — Ira Sachs

I always had the sense of being in the spotlight, being on stage, being looked at. — Vincent Cassel

I'm an actor, that's what I do every day. Dressing up is part of my job. But whatever you wear you should always be yourself: never go totally with the fashion but use what there is available to be an individual. — Vincent Cassel

When I was 17, I was told I had the choice of enlisting in the Navy or going to jail, so I spent the next three years in the Navy. — Seymour Cassel