I think Hollywood has a class system. The actors are like the inmates, but the truth is they're running the asylum.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that while actors may seem confined by the industry, they actually hold significant power and influence within it.
In this quote, Robert De Niro compares Hollywood to a classical asylum where the actors, who appear to be restricted or controlled, are actually the ones in charge. The metaphor highlights the paradox of how those who seem to be seen as mere performers within the industry possess the authority and creativity that drive the entire system of filmmaking. This statement prompts us to reconsider appearances of power and control in any hierarchical structure.
In practice
In a conversation about the entertainment industry, one might quote De Niro to illustrate how actors influence film production.
You never know what you do that could be totally out of left field, which actually might work and give something fresh to the whole scene, to the character, whatever. If you have that with a director who then knows how to shape it, either in the direction, in the moment, or in the editing, then that's good.
I spent lunchtime in a grave during the filming of 'Bloody Mama.' When you're younger, you feel that's what you need to do to help you stay in character. When you get older, you become more confident and less intense about it - and you can achieve the same effect.
The mind of a writer can be a truly terrifying thing. Isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination, consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing, and soul-crushing inadequacy. And thatβs on a good day.
If you're an actor, always be true to your character. If you are not an actor, have character and always be true to yourself.
Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that from us also.
When there are no gas chambers, no barbed wire, and no concentration camps, many don't recognize the perpetration of new genocides and other targeted mass atrocity crimes because they may not look the same.
Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid...He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world
Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend.
Real isn't how you are made. It's a thing that happens to you. Sometimes it hurts, but when you are Real you don't mind being hurt. It doesn't happen all at once. You become. Once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. Once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.
Panic is rare, looting is essentially insignificant, people are not terrified and trampling each other to flee from a disaster scene, but in fact are trying to manage a situation. We may in fact revert to some sort of primordial civility.
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