I never worked with Marilyn Monroe, but if she'd lived, I think she would have been all right. She would have been President of the United States. Walter Matthau More Quotes by Walter Matthau More Quotes From Walter Matthau I retired once a couple of times. Walter Matthau once times retired couple Doing a good play on the stage is like eating a good meal at home - assuming your wife is a great cook or that she's hired a great cook. Walter Matthau great good wife home Doing a movie is like eating five hundred canapes at a cocktail party - you're never really full. You don't feel as though you've eaten a meal, and yet you can't eat any more. Walter Matthau feel never you eating I don't know how you can tell a good actor in the movies. I really don't. I think you simply just do the part and hope to God that the director has a good cutter and a good editor, and it'll all get cut and put together so that you look good in it. Walter Matthau good you hope god Of course I gamble, to make the games interesting. But five hundred dollars a game, tops. Or sometimes a thousand. No heart attack bets. Walter Matthau game heart sometimes interesting The only guy that was ever affected by climactic conditions in his acting was Kirk Douglas. He did a superb job in 'Lonely Are the Brave' because we were shooting that picture up at about 12,000 feet, and the rarefied atmosphere sapped him of any energy or strength that he had. That was his best performance. Walter Matthau picture best strength brave I told Simon, 'I don't want to play Oscar. I want to play Felix because Oscar is too easy. He gets all the laughs. Felix is a hard part; that's the part I want to play.' Walter Matthau hard easy want play Sometimes it takes me six months before I find out what a line means, even if the writing is superficial... To do a play right, really, I'd like to take two years of rehearsal. You study the character by living with him. Walter Matthau me you sometimes character Working for the screen is almost like being in the Army: you set your mind to it, and you do it. Walter Matthau your you army mind If you're sitting around and doing Chekhov and the cat walks in, you must pay attention to the cat. You cannot continue the dialogue of Chekhov without including the cat. So on live television, we'd automatically go into ad-lib gear. Walter Matthau live you sitting attention People say, 'When are you going to do serious stuff?' I look at them as though they were crazy. My serious stuff is my comedy. That's how I make my points. Walter Matthau look you crazy people I've made $50 million over the years as a movie star, if you'll pardon the expression, and I've given most of it to the bookies. Walter Matthau over you expression years I still think I'm 28. I'm 73. I think I'm 28, though, except that I won't get into a fight with anybody because I just had a pacemaker put in. Walter Matthau i-think fight just think I lay 11-10 because I know the bookie needs that 5 percent that I give him. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to make a living and go down to Florida with his family. Walter Matthau down go know family I was playing Russell Long, the senator from Louisiana. I had 12 speech teachers watching me. All the other passengers on the airplane were speech teachers, and every time I got it wrong, one of the speech teachers would jump up and correct it. Walter Matthau teachers me time long
