I've been tossing and turning all night giving this a great deal of thought, and there is one way you can save the day here, and that is to tell the Taliban that you are going to escort every Afghan at once to leave the Taliban behind to the airport and put them on planes to safety.

Ron Perlman

I'm thankful to be breathing, on this side of the grass. Whatever comes, comes.

Ron Perlman

being-thankful breathing gratitude

I've always felt there were aspects of me that were monstrous, and you can either hide from it or confront it, embrace it and understand that those are aspects that make you unique and define you and motivate you. You can either overwhelm or overcompensate for them -- but they truly define you as a human being...So that life became a question of either dealing with this monstrousness in one way or another...One finds a way to understand and make friends with that monster and understand that that's the very thing that makes you who you are. That's your emotional and spiritual fingerprint.

Ron Perlman

emotional unique spiritual

My whole mantra is, "Go big or go home." I don't want to just play a guy who dresses up. I want to play the person who threw down.

Ron Perlman

guy play home

I love great animation.

Ron Perlman

animation

I'm fully aware that things that resonate and become real hits are the exception to the rule, so much so that I've wired myself for failure.

Ron Perlman

exception-to-the-rule exception real

Almost all of your life is lived by the seat of your pants, one unexpected event crashing into another, with no pattern or reason, and then you finally reach a point, around my age, where you spend more time than ever looking back. Why did this happen? Look where that led? You see the shape of things.

Ron Perlman

events age birthday

I'm just trying to make up for lost times, and I have total awareness that when the work is coming it doesn't mean it's going to continue to come, so I'm taking advantage of this phenomenal period that I'm in now, to its fullest.

Ron Perlman

awareness trying mean

I lost 90 pounds and my blood pressure went down to a normal level and the salt in my urine disappeared. And that was when I had to make the transition from fat character actor to thin character actor.

Ron Perlman

transition character blood

Look at the people who are coming to television Ridley Scott, Ang Lee or Guillermo del Toro - all these great filmmakers - actively put themselves back into TV. That's because the environment is very encouraging for bold storytelling, storytelling that you've never seen before.

Ron Perlman

tvs people looks

The approach to acting is always the same, you try to figure who the guy is and then you try to transition your way into his way of thinking and moving through the world. The rest of it is just accoutrements, you don't play the makeup, you play the guy. If you're not wearing makeup, you just play the guy.

Ron Perlman

makeup moving thinking

My self-confidence didn't come from my appearance, it came from other things that I did. But certainly not my appearance.

Ron Perlman

self-confidence appearance self

It's nice to get paid for therapy rather than having to pay $240 an hour for it.

Ron Perlman

hours nice pay

I think now that I'm in the autumn of my life, and I'm getting a chance of having an overview and looking at the shape of how things happen, when things happen, why things happen, I think it was fitting that I spent most of my early career doing mask work, because I just don't think I was that comfortable in my own skin.

Ron Perlman

autumn careers thinking

I was working more on a primal, instinctive level. And it just seemed to suit me; it seemed to suit my concentration span, it seemed to suit my personal style of performance, and I have fallen in love with film acting.

Ron Perlman

suits style acting

Cinema to me is like a religion. If I was going to have a religion it would be cinema.

Ron Perlman

cinema ifs would-be

You draw on your own childhood every time you tee it up as an actor.

Ron Perlman

childhood fatherhood actors

I don't think that I've had a career like anyone else's, but there are hosts and hosts of actors whose careers I admire.

Ron Perlman

actors careers thinking

I say yes to almost anything that comes my way.

Ron Perlman

my-way way

Fearless people are interesting to watch.

Ron Perlman

fearless people interesting

I had an opportunity to be in Frank's [Sinatra] circle, but I couldn't take advantage of it because I couldn't get over how awed I was by him. It was so uncomfortable for me because he meant so much to me, but I just couldn't be myself, so I fled rather than having those great nights hanging out.

Ron Perlman

circles opportunity night