Scott Bakula Quotes

Being an actor opened doors for me to explore my emotions as different people and characters, and expand my own inner soul.

I'm a musical theater guy. That's where I came from. That's where I go whenever I have the chance. It's my first love.

I've always been a big fan of time travel, and I'm very into the notion that some day we'll be able to do it. Beam me up!

The longer you are in acting business, the more you cherish the times when you're working with people that do great work, and can figure out how to enjoy themselves while they're doing the great work.

I'd really like to play bad guys or guys that have something a little bit off about them. And I get to do that periodically.

I've done a lot of work other than sci-fi, and between half-hour comedy, stage, and various movie roles, I've really tried to avoid being typecast.

My favorite thing about running is running when it's as hot as it can be, which is a little odd.

I love 'White Christmas.' That's one of my favorites just because I love the music. I love the story, Bing Crosby. It's just one of my all time favorites. And it's hard to have a Christmas without seeing a little bit of Jimmy Stewart and angels running around town.

I've always been told I had an old face. So when I was in my 20s, I never got to play a teenager.

And I've always felt comfortable certainly in a courtroom because you're just performing. And there was a time in my life when I thought when I grew up I'd be a trial lawyer myself.

These sci-fi fans are phenomenal in the standards that they hold you to.

Years ago, I did a CBS audition. I was nervous. They introduced me as 'Scott Bakoola.' Not a good sign. I also didn't get the show.

With any kind of sci-fi, the imagination continues, and the world exists, and you create that in your own mind, and it lives in you.

I try to get on stage whenever I can. I'm always trying to be involved in the theater, doing something on stage, whenever I have downtime. I'm always looking for it.

You want to try and bring a character to life in an honest a way as you possibly can. It doesn't matter whether he's a doctor, an actor, a car salesman or a captain of a starship. If you can bring truth and honesty to that character, then your audience will believe you.

To do something for other people when they need it most just feels good.

The 'NCIS' franchise is beyond successful.

By all standards, except for 'Star Trek' standards, 98 episodes of any television show is a wildly successful run.

The end of shows are a nightmare for everybody because there is so much pressure to satisfy everyone, which of course you can't do.

New Orleans has a unique history as a great melting pot of all kinds of cultures, and that manifests itself now through the food, the music, and the kinds of people who live there.

My oldest son started to like 'South Park' and 'Family Guy,' so we'd watch together so I could spend time with him.

My kids are good athletes and runners. They run in a bunch of sports.

A lot of people don't know that I'm a singer - that's my thing, really.

I was a huge fan of the original 'Star Trek,' and I'd never even dreamed that I would someday be captain of a starship.

I don't think that a company should own a studio and the network, and program for their own network. It hurts the creativity - it is not a level playing field.

If you're a fan of Shirley MacLaine just like I am, I'd kinda go anywhere to work with her.

I like fantasy. I've always been the kind of kid who likes to dream about other things I could be and exotic situations I could be in.

The reality of our business is that for every actor who's rolled up his tent and given up and gone home, the next day you hear about some shoe salesman at Macy's who had this audition and now he's Harrison Ford. There's always that carrot out there in our business.

I went into show business because I love to work with people, and what I enjoy most about acting is rehearsing and getting to know people and their talents, forming relationships. Working in this business, barriers drop and you get into people real quickly.

'Behind The Candelabra' is an HBO movie. It's the Liberace story. Michael Douglass and Matt Damon. I play a small part in it. I play a choreographer who introduces, brings Matt Damon to Las Vegas for the first time.

I wanted to be an actor because it gave me the opportunity to express myself in ways I wasn't comfortable expressing myself, as a kid growing up in St. Louis.

I grew up in St. Louis, and I don't know if you've ever been to St. Louis in the middle of summer. There are days in the summer sometimes, weeks in the summer, where the temperature can be over 100 degrees and the humidity can be 100 percent.

'Certainly Men of a Certain Age' was different for me and allowed people to see me in a different light. Maybe that opened up minds a little bit.

For a long-running TV show, you're looking for a character who is interesting and vibrant and you can imagine going into all kinds of different areas.

I've composed a fair amount in my life, and some of them have made it on to the screen, some compositions that I've done, a few. And I like doing that. I had never really considered doing a full-length thing. I've worked with other people creating full-length pieces.

I never intended to be on television or in a movie. The theater was all I ever dreamed about, once I decided to try to make it as a business profession. All this other stuff has just been icing.

I'm a runner from sports. I've been a runner, but I wasn't a cross-country runner or anything like that. I played a lot of soccer growing up.

Clive Barker is just genius, and he's incredibly gifted in so many different ways. He can write and direct and paint and do all these different things, and he can do them all extremely well.

To be quite honest, I find that it's easier to do parts that are wrapped up in different hair and wardrobe and eras, and different period behavior, than it is to play closer to the present.

Sunday night was such a big night for television when I was growing up - you know, 'The Wonderful World of Disney.'

It's always great to be involved in something that's not in an in-your-face fashion, but has a message that goes out guised as entertainment.

I think the challenge in hour television or half-hour television is that the more it's around, certainly on commercial television, the less time you have to tell stories these days, because the more commercials they're putting in.

On the whole, show business is a hard business in which to be married.

It's a joyful, humbling feeling to be in different places around the planet, and people have seen shows that I'm proud of being a part of, that do have things to say about the human condition, the planet, and who we are and where we've come from, that will sustain.

I've done great theatre, great films and had a lot of opportunities in television. I also love to sing, and I've been able to do that once or twice in the television shows.

The biggest challenge for everybody to realize out there is that we're in a very complicated business world and that were all under one umbrella and it's very challenging for everybody to figure out where the priorities lie and where the loyalties lie.

The guy that picked me up at the airport in 1985 when I was out in L.A. for my first audition was selling a script. I was a nobody coming off a plane to read for a new show.

My daughter, when she was younger, was crazy about 'The X-Files,' so I'd watch that with her.