Top 50 Van Heflin Quotes

I try to acquire some new approach with each role in order to build up a varied acting technique.

What I like about the independent field is that an actor can pick his roles and his stories and do them without anyone always telling him what he can and can’t do.

Too many women without sufficient interest in the home to occupy their time drift into the habit of three-hour lunches with their friends, followed by fashion shows, matinees and shopping sprees.

Foreign films have helped me because I’ve become identified with international stars.

Sometimes I wish I had remained in little theater.

I spent six years before the mast on all types of merchant ships, and naturally I feel well qualified for seafaring roles.

I’m a very practical actor, and having an artistic triumph that’s a commercial flop doesn’t do you any good, in any phase of show world.

I’m not good-looking enough, and I don’t have the personality it takes to play myself like the big box-office stars.

I’ve never played the same part twice.

It is a terrible thing to become a legend in your own time.

Sometimes when an actor returns to work after three or four years in service, he is assigned inferior roles because the studio claims popularity has to be built again.

A lot of Europeans have done this, worked with American stars, and become identified over here.

When you give people something for nothing for awhile and then try to sell them some of that same thing, consciously or not, they resent it.

I get $100,000 a picture and if I don’t work, that means that’s $100,000 I don’t make.

I read scripts movie, TV and theater. I read every novel that is published. I read every book that comes out on the theater or the movies, including the technical ones.

I went on tour in the 1952-53 season for producer Kermit Bloomgarden when he took over ‘The Shrike’ and sent it on the road.

You have to be careful of the pictures you make. You should ask, Will it have universal appeal, will it have an appeal at home?

I started out in Hollywood and I owe a certain amount of loyalty to both the American movie industry and this country.

I’m not clothes-conscious.

Most fellows learned something about dressing in college. But my fraternity made me stay in the basement whenever we gave a dance.

If you don’t have that indefinable unique personality, you must learn as much as possible about acting in a variety of roles. That’s why, at the outset of my career, I decided to learn every facet of my profession.

I’m a character actor, always have been.

Someday, I expect to see a television version of ‘Hamlet‘ and see Hamlet come on during the intermission and hold up his sword and say ‘This is made of the same fine steel as such-and-such razor blades.’

I owe a great debt to what we call the amateur theater.

Housework has been reduced to a minimum. Even without servants, there is scarcely enough to do to keep women occupied eight hours a day. Moreover, girls are now trained to handle jobs in high school. They graduate from school and college prepared to take over places in the business world.

I always like to get back to the stage when I find something I want to do.

A contract player has to do what he’s told, and play the parts others pick out for him. As far as the studio is concerned he’s just part of the stable.

A doctor or lawyer who has reached the top can stay there or move on to higher prestige positions. But an actor of comparable competence and success and age has little or no control over his career.

When TV came along some years back I purposely stayed away from drama.

I’ve been doing a lot of pictures in Europe. So many that producers here don’t call me when they have a part for me – they think I’m never here any more.

There are always fresh problems for an actor to solve.

Let’s face it. I’m not a personality or the handsome actor type. When you have those God-given assets, you don’t have to worry if your acting leaves something to be desired. You can just play yourself on the screen and the public comes flocking to your pictures.

I think television will do the same thing to radio that talkies did to silent movies.

I’m from the old school of actors who are convinced too much exposure on TV isn’t good for a long career.

I can’t stand loafing. It’s awfully hard on you.

If I pull in a fish I have no intention of eating, I release him immediately or give it away. If he’s swallowed the hook and you know the fish is going to die, rather than leave him to the sharks you should bring him in for the vitamin content. Aquariums welcome fish for feeding the dolphins and whales.

You must remember that I won an Oscar for my role Johnny Eager. Then I went into the Army. But before I did, I was rushed into three other pictures to capitalize on the first.

Acting is a full-time job for me.

My predecessors in this business of acting were fully convinced their work would never be recorded, except in the form of reviews or paintings.

When I was in ‘Philadelphia Story‘ I got Joe Cotten to pick out my clothes. He loves clothes and he knows them; never gets the wrong tie and shirt combination.

I think it’s all right for an actor to appear on television as a guest maybe three or four times a year. Perhaps to preview a future movie or a play.

If producers want to lure the few TV holdouts left, all they have to do is give them a good script and a guarantee of enough time to rehearse. They’d be surprised how fast those hard-to-gets would grab at the bait!

A director in films is closer allied to the writer than anyone else.

The professional’s love for the theater is less pure than that of the non-professional’s.

Working in Europe has been very good for me – I’ve become an international favorite.

I don’t want to be painted any one color and that can happen to you in Hollywood if you make a hit in a particular role.

Entertainment is a good enough product to sell on its own merits. Why should it be given away free to help somebody sell tires or toothpaste?

I’m absolutely an amoeba. It’s my survival value.

I don’t want to work too hard any more.

Nothing creative functions well when fenced in or leaning on a prop. A contract is a fence and a prop.