Bruce Davison

I spent my whole life figuring out how to get out of work. I would say I was intelligent, but intelligent in a very surreptitious, invisible way.

You have cocktails for 250,000 people when millions upon millions are sick.

Actors, lots of times, are great when they have great parts. For me, a lot of times, it’s been the part.

I was always a visual person. I could see things visually. I had a harder time with numbers and logic, and I always had more of an artistic sensibility. So that I could do. And it was something that I really loved.

Hollywood could use less instead of more of everything.

I think tolerance is something everybody needs to be reminded of, especially in a reactionary political world. Well, actually, I should say, a reactionary political climate.

I’m over there filming in South Africa now, and two in five are HIV-positive now. Not many people know that.

That’s always something that’s really important for an actor – to find an opportunity to do a scene where there is a moment like that, where you manage to connect with everyone.

It was quite a ride and very conflicting for me, too – to be nominated for an Oscar, to be straight and healthy, and to be getting all these accolades while these people around me were suffering and dying from AIDS.

A good actor is somebody who can be truthful and fascinating and interesting and enlightening.