James Badge Dale Quotes

In a weird way, I live vicariously through the characters I play as an actor.

Marvel is very secretive, so there was no script. About six months before production, they gave me some pages and it was from a cop movie. And then, six months later, I got a phone call saying, "Do you want to come do this?" [iron Man]

I grew up in a family of actors. I grew up onstage. The choice for me wasn't, 'Do I want to be an actor or not?' I always felt like that's just ingrained in you, the need to perform. The choice was, 'Do you want to do this professionally or not?'

I like pressure. Pressure is good.

When you're outside in those elements, there's something out there that takes it out of you, so you work real hard. It was physically demanding, but in a very good way. It's not a bad thing. It's a good thing, when things are physically demanding 'cause everyone is rising to the occasion.

As an audience member, I live vicariously through the characters I watch or read about. There's something very relatable about comic-book characters. They're never perfect. They're flawed people put in extraordinary circumstances.

I've done a number of films that no one has ever seen, and that's probably a good thing.

I've never been someone to count lines, look at it that way.

I was really lucky that, through my 20s, I got to work with some amazing people, and I tried to sit back and watch and learn.

The biggest regret I have about 'Rubicon' is that we didn't end it. Sometimes you do these shows and you don't have the opportunity to get closure. Stories are supposed to have a beginning, middle and an end.

The physicality was important to me. Because the film has Shane Black's dialogue, and [Robert] Downey's delivery, and you look at [Jon] Favreau, Don Cheadle and Gwyneth [Paltrow], it is this heightened level with a comedic aspect to it. Everything is grounded in reality, but it plays a little heightened.

Speaking of childhood fantasy, we were doing a Western, but we were also just hanging out. You work, and you ride and ride and ride, and then, for the next two hours, you look for a place to kick out, in this amazing canyon with so much heritage and so much history.

As we were negotiating, I didn't have a script. Once the deal is closed, they let you read the script. So, I got the script and was reading it like, "Oh, please be good!," because I'd already signed on the dotted line. And I read it and just went, "Okay, I'm going to be okay. Thank god!" It was a really funny, moving story.

I want to show up to work and take risks. I don't ever want to play it safe.

I'm a pretty private person, so I'd like to say I'm a good ear and that I keep my mouth shut.

You spend all this time, as a child, coming up with these fantasy stories, and here I am, sleeping in a treehouse, in the middle of Canyon de Chelly, shooting a Western. That's a bit of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

En you show up to work and put on your undergarments, throw on your suspenders and your cowboy boots, throw some dirt on you, and then get on your spurs, you start to walk a bit different. When you put on your gun belts, you change again. You go through this whole transformation process. All that stuff changes you. Riding a horse changes the way you walk and your demeanor.

The older I get, the more vegetables I eat. I can't stress that more. Eating healthy really affects my work. You not only need to be physically prepared, but mentally and spiritually.

I grew up in a crazy, gypsy-like household of actors, dancers and loony Broadway people. It was their way of life, and I didn't know anything else.

You want to work with good people. When you're working with good people, it frees you up. There's nothing worse, as an actor, to show up and then feel like you have to protect yourself somehow because you don't feel like you're in good hands.

I don't know why I just remembered this, and I haven't told anybody this, but we were shooting in Canyon de Chelly and we were so far up the canyon. Once we were up there, we were up there. There was no going back to your trailers.

Not every conspiracy is a theory,

I got beat up by the comic-book kids when I was younger! They were cooler than me. Talk about levels of geekdom, I was a couple rungs below the kids who read comic books. Yeah. Not so cool, man.

The hats are tough. I've got a weird head, so believe me, there were a lot of hats. Penny [Rose], our costume designer, who I knew from other jobs said, "Badge, that looks terrible on you. Hold on. No, we can't do that one."