Quotes by Tom Berenger

• Every other movie is one of those action things. I mean, 'Lost in Space'? A bunch of good actors running around shooting at special effects on a soundstage? I took my kids to see that and felt like I was on an acid trip.
• Debra Winger doesn't let anything interfere with her performance, which is the way it should be.
• Even my agents say, We don't know what this business is anymore.
• Around mid-life everyone goes maniac a little bit.
• Take characters that Nicholson or De Niro play: they're not always tough.
• There's a hysterical, tired sense of humor that comes after working 14 hours a day, six days a week. I like those things because they take the pressure off the constant stress.
• These days, you can do a TV series for five years and all of a sudden be on top of the business. Features don't even run in theaters very long anymore before going right to television.
• This is all new to me, these re-releases. I don't know how these things do. I don't know if it will be people who saw it originally or young people.
• To people outside, they think, Gee, that's great. You get to go here and there. The other side of that is our expression, This is location, not vacation.
• Rough Riders took 13 weeks to shoot, plus a week of training. The same guy trained us trained the cast in Platoon. Except, instead of radios, we used bugles to signal.
• While I was doing these plays in the beginning, I wasn't getting paid. I thought of it more as a hobby. Then I realized how seriously a lot of these people took what they were doing.
• Sometimes I think I'm real predictable to myself and other times... you always wonder, Is this really what I wanted to do? Did I make a mistake? Should I be doing something else?
• You can't think that you're playing a villain, or you'll end up with a cartoon. You have to think about him as a person and a hero.
• We had training camp for a week, and we used the actual military drills of that period. We didn't have to work out much after hours, because going up and down hills all day was a good workout in itself.
• I remember seeing Bill Hurt in New York once. I talked to him on the phone around 1988 and that's about it. I was shooting in New York and somebody said Glenn Close came by the set.
• The Big Chill is one of those things that everybody can identify with. Between eight characters, they can pick somebody who's somewhat like them.
• My mother, sister and I watched through the windows as my father gambled.
• I like playing flawed characters, people who aren't perfect.
• I was kind of confused. I thought, Well, if I get drafted, I'll go. Everybody was very concerned with it. I had friends who went. Some that came back and some that didn't.
• I wrote a script. I actually enjoyed writing it more than acting. It's about the Irish rebellion of 1920, which is a fascinating period and place for me.
• I'm probably satisfied with my career 80 percent of the time.
• I've done about six comedies. Oddly enough, the script came to me from one of the guys in Platoon.
• Most of what gets made now, you laugh your way through, go home and forget you've seen it.
• I have family obligations and all that stuff. I get my kids six weeks in the summer, which is a real intense period of time. I'm with them every minute of the day.
• I guess if I weren't an actor, I'd be a history professor.
• I came in on the tail end of the old school of Hollywood.
• I didn't know how to go about preparing for the part of someone who can't remember who he is. The frustration angle is written in, but there's also this incredible passive state.
• I don't care about being a star. I can do a supporting role; I don't have to be a lead.
• I don't think a director should have any kids. I don't even think it's good for your physical health. Even guys in their 30s look exhausted because directors never get enough sleep. What I do is stressful enough.
• I got to talking to an old actor, and he had a bunch of stories about the Rough Riders.
• I had already done a lot of research for Rough Riders, keeping notebooks and old photographs. Some of the books were antiques for that time period, with the covers falling off.