75 Quotes by Billy Campbell

A great deal of my battle, as an actor, is to whittle away the things that make me self-conscious and try to trick myself into not being self-conscious. So, it's always a challenge, whether I'm lying in a hospital bed or flying around with a rocket pack on my back, or what have you. On the best of days, it's a challenge for me.

Most sailing ships take what they call trainees, who pay to be part of the crew. The Picton Castle takes people who are absolutely raw recruits. But you can't just ride along. You're learning to steer the ship, navigation; you're pulling lines, keeping a lookout; in the galley you're cooking.

Aside from what it teaches you, there is simply the indescribable degree of peace that can be achieved on a sailing vessel at sea. I guess a combination of hard work and the seemingly infinite expanse of the sea - the profound solitude - that does it for me.

I can't say that I haven't done some bad acting in my time. I have. Usually that involves what we actors call 'indicating,' when you twirl your mustache.

I almost always do things that I like, in some form or fashion. Every once in awhile that means that I don't think the script is any good and I don't have any trust in the people, but the film is shooting in Sri Lanka, or somewhere like that, so I'm going.

The first trip I remember taking was on the train from Virginia up to New York City, watching the summertime countryside rolling past the window. They used white linen tablecloths in the dining car in those days, and real silver. I love trains to this day. Maybe that was the beginning of my fixation with leisurely modes of travel.

I sailed a bit as a child, but it wasn't until I was around 40, when I was halfway through Patrick O'Brian's 'Master and Commander' novels, that I had the sudden epiphany that I had to go sail on a square-rig ship.

Some of the best auditions I've ever had have been when my agent called and said, 'They want you 20 minutes ago, in an office in Century City, to see you for something.' I'm not sitting there thinking for a week and a half, before I'm supposed to go in front of a network president to do something. That just gives you time to be nervous.

The feeling of being at sea has put me in touch with who I am to a greater degree than if I had been on land all these years. So, in a roundabout way, I imagine it does inform my acting.