Happy Birthday Mark Hamill!

'Star Wars' is more fairy tale than true science fiction.

Acting in 'Star Wars' I felt like a raisin in a giant fruit salad, and I didn't even know who the cantaloupes were.

The idea of The Force is basically 'Religions Greatest Hits'.

Part of me always longed to do just one more film and see what Luke would be like now that he's on the level of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the student having become the master. But it was not meant to be.

I'm surprised at people who have a passion for Mitt Romney, because he's taken every position there is. I would cast this guy as the president in a heartbeat... but I just cannot believe a word he says.

A cartoonist creates his whole universe without any input.

You know how there are some stars out there who know how to market themselves? I don't have that.

I love the fact that, one time, my face was on the back of a cereal box - probably 3-CPO's - and it was a mask where you cut out the eye holes and put a string through the side. It makes me feel like I'm 11 years old all over again.

I can't tell you how much we laughed on the set to have Alec Guinness in a scene with a big, furry dog that's flying a space ship.

One of the things that I love about voiceover is that it's a situation where - because you're not encumbered by being seen - it's liberating. You're able to make broad choices that you would never make if you were on camera.

At the last Celebration I spoke before an auditorium full of people and I could just feel the affection and the positive feelings that they were exuding. It was actually moving. I remember thinking, 'I'm not worthy,' because 'Star Wars' is so much bigger than all of us. 

I live in a sort of insular world. It's mostly my family, my house, staying home and working. 

I don't think it's fair to compare Dick Cheney to Vader - it's unfair to Vader.

I'm so much like Luke Skywalker I guess I always will be.

I will say that comic books are not the easiest things to translate to film, number one. Even the most well meaning of filmmakers find what's acceptable on the printed page is very difficult to bring to film.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if there were a way to make movies without actors, George Lucas would do it.

You know those actors who have a sense for how they should be used? I don't think I have that.

People think being remembered most for one character is a negative thing, but I don't. I never expected to be remembered for anything!

I've always loved Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness movies. 

I debated in high school! If you told things that weren't true or just made things out of whole cloth, you were penalized. It's too bad they don't apply the same standards to presidential candidates as they do to high school students.

Character roles only indicate that they're very different from who you are as a person, and for me, it's fun hiding behind characters that are so unlike who I am. 

I love actors, number one. There's probably nobody that you could name that I don't like, depending on what it is they're in.

There's something fascinating about watching artists draw. 

I never saw myself so much as an actor. I wanted to be a cartoonist like Charles M. Schulz and create my own world and be able to have a studio at home and not commute and be able to be with my family. 

When I was a teenager, I did one animated series back when I was on 'General Hospital.' It was 1971 or '72. Then I didn't do animation until 'Batman.' 

When you say 'comic book' in America, people think of Mickey Mouse, and Archie. It has a connotation of juvenile. 

I love ensemble pieces, I love being a part of the entire tapestry of a piece, but I think character actors do have a lot more fun, and there's a versatility involved that's challenging and fun, to come up to speed and do what's required of you. 

When I was involved with 'Star Wars,' I was very interested in all the backstories, and I used to pepper George with all kinds of questions about anything that crossed my mind, because I was very, very into it. But when the job came to an end, I had to move on.

Launching a Broadway show is like no other endeavor. It's taxing because you're present - it's not like cutting a movie and test focus-grouping it and filling out forms. 

So much of life is what you roll and where you land. 

I think 'Comic Book: The Movie' is the apex of my career in terms of making a personal statement that has significance to me and resonates with biographical detail about not only my career, but all the people that I've worked with in my career. All of it's riddled, on- and off-camera, with people I've known and worked with for decades.

I have failed 'Star Wars' trivia tests. People come up to me at conventions and use terms that I've never heard of. 

In high school, I had to hide my comic book side, my nerd side from the civilian world so they wouldn't categorize me. They would try to marginalize me for what I like. I tried to give it up, believe me. I tried to kick the habit. But there's too much I liked about it to give it up completely. 

Now we need to make sure all Nike fans are registered & turn out to VOTE in November...

Really sorry to hear these are doctored pictures because it's a GREAT idea to thwart poachers! Hopefully, someday it will become a reality & there's someone out there working on it right now to save rhino's & elephant's lives.

We should have anticipated this. Now he's lying preemptively.  

Do you have gnomes, dragons & centaurs in your world?

🎼 They call him Flipper, Flipper- No one, you see, flips faster than he...
🎵 And we know Flipper, lives in a dark world of blunder,
🎶 Lying there under, Mueller you see! 

Do you have mermaids, Unicorns & leprechauns in your world?

Don't be a-feared of Bob Woodward's FEAR-unless you're the #OrangeObscenityInChief or members his grifter crime-family & administration enablers who are all destined for lovely matching orange jumpsuits! #MuellersFollowingRussianMoney

Sure I'm a 🐺s fan, but for me it's #AllAboutTheMascots-If there are any teams out there represented by these animals:                    🐶🐱🐰🐻🐼🐯🐨🐹🐷🐵🦊🦝🐗🐴🦓🦒🦌🦘🐭🦁🐸🦍🐧🐦🐤🦄🐝🦋🐌🐞🐜🦗🕷️🦂🐢🐍🦎🐙🦞🦀🐬🦈🐳🐊🐆...I'M IN!
💖- Mar🐪

Sports fans are more passionate than #StarWars fans. This was the time I gained 6K+ followers by accidentally "liking" a tweet I thought was about an actual wolf🐺- Now I'm a mad fan of Wolverhampton Wanderers-an actual team I had no idea even existed before!

More proof my acting is better in the comic books.

They were thinking of the 1st Amendment & the player's rights to peacefully protest police brutality against unarmed people of color- NOT your divisive, phony narrative that they are anti-flag or anti-National Anthem. 

In the UK, movie/TV background "Extras" are called background "Artisites" which is far more respectful considering their vital contributions. But I wonder how they feel when they are billed in the End Credits as:"Fat Slob At Bar" or "Ugly Woman With Poodle"

In Corvette Summer I was so upset when Kenny is on the bike & hitches the ride on RV to catch up to his Corvette & they asked me to do that stunt myself-I lost control of the bike, wiped out & wound up in the hospital. Still very fond of that movie though

This is funny cuz just like"Russia, if you're listening..."you're supposed to keep your ideas about turning the DOJ into a weapon against political enemies & assaulting the law IN THE THOUGHT-BUBBLE- not TWEET them!

Good question! I've looked everywhere: between the couch cushions, behind the refrigerator, the back pocket of my brown slacks... it must be with my remote-control (which I can never find either).

In Drama school we were warned: When an actor concentrates & obsesses on his reviews, his performance is sure to suffer immeasurably.

Happy Birthday Andreas Eschbach!

It only becomes art if it touches other people.

Eine gute Frage ist oft schon die halbe Antwort. Viele Probleme entstehen nicht aus fehlenden Antworten, sondern aus ungenauen Fragen.

Nothing is more difficult to exterminate than religion, no matter how false it may be.

Religion war eine Art Regenschirm. Bei schönem Wetter denkt man überhaupt nicht an seinen Regenschirm. Erst wenn es regnet, fällt er einem wieder ein.

In Amerika gibt es so viele Creative Writing Kurse wie in Deutschland Fußballclubs. Deswegen gibt es in Amerika viele gute Schriftsteller, und in Deutschland viele gute Fußballspieler. Punkt.

Es ist immer dasselbe. Die Titanic sinkt, aber das Orchester spielt weiter, [... ] Nur das es diesmal überhaut keine Rettungsboote gibt.

Im Grunde genommen geht es immer noch um den Satz, den ich damals auf meinen Gaderobespiegel geschrieben habe und dessen Ende weggewischt hatte: "Ich passe auf mich auf, aber falls mir etwas passieren sollte..." Die Sache ist die, dass man das nicht einfach wegwischen kann. Falls man nicht gerade beschlossen hat, blind und feig durchs Leben zu gehen, muss man eine Antwort finden auf die Frage, wie dieser Satz weitergehen soll. Und man kann die Frage, was man sich wünscht für die Zeit nach seinem Tod, nicht beantworten, ohne sich darüber im Klaren zu sein, was man sich wahrhaft wünscht für die Zeit davor.

But shame is like a wound that is never exposed and therefore never heals.

Die Ära der Nationen ist vorbei. Eine Zeit lang werden die Menschen noch daran festhalten, wie an Großmutters Teeservice, das man nie benutzt, weil es nicht spülmaschinenfest ist, aber eine der nächsten Generationen wird nicht mehr verstehen, wozu eine Nation gut sein soll.

Mein Körper weiß jetzt nicht, ob er das Wasser im Mund zusammenlaufen oder Gänsehaut erzeugen soll.

Happy Birthday Walter Koenig!

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

I didn't watch Raumschiff Enterprise the first year it was on, before I was on the show. I took one look at the Styrofoam rocks and said: "There's no way I'm going to watch this!"

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.

I'm always looking for a low-budget script with an interesting character to play. 

I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Raumschiff Enterprise has given me a considerable amount of satisfaction and a certain amount of respect in the industry community and among people who watch television and movies. I enjoy that. I enjoy feeling good about myself. God knows it's easy enough for me to feel bad about myself -- I need all the support I can get. Star Trek deserves the respect it has received. If I'm going to be aligned with something, it might as well be something that makes a worthwhile statement most of the time. No, I don't have any regrets about my involvement with Star Trek.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.

Religious tolerance is something we should all practice; however, there have been more persecution and atrocities committed in the name of religion and religious freedom than anything else. 

I was only one of two people who auditioned for the part, which is quite extraordinary. Considering that this has so materially effected the last 35 years of my life... a couple of hours after I auditioned, I heard that I had gotten the role.

Well, an actor is an actor is actor, to paraphrase someone or other and the opportunity to work, to have a steady engagement, certainly seemed like an appealing concept to me.

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

Wrote an article for an anthology titled "Stranger In A Strange Land" about the  subject of immigration. Poems, short stories, essays, etc. Published after the first of the year. When I know more I'll post.

Please don't confuse me with the biologist Walter Koenig  who says that squirrels store their acorns in the holes of trees.

Make catch phrases of this administrations contradictory statements and play them on the internet again and again without interruption. Maybe then the "base" will pay attention.

Hey @realDonaldTrump - endangered species are dying every day you allow imported animal trophies. We demand you bring back the trophy hunting ban to save elephants and lions! These animals are #WorthMoreAlive (via @SaveAnimals)

Deep Space 9 People REAlLY like each other! God, what must that be like?

"Destination Star Trek". Growing up during WWII the German people as I now know them continue to bring joy to my heart.

"White Trash" by Nancy Isenberg 4 centuries of the class system in America. Oh, now I get it! Not your grandparents history lesson.

just back from two day shoot in Shreveport, La.: "Who is Martin Danzig?" Didn't know I could still have such a good time.

Back from the hospital. Doing well. Trying to put a feature motion picture together and determined not to watch Trump tonight.

People  like me on S.T. but I should otherwise remain silent. This is the planet we actually live on and injustice should not be tolerated.

"Killers of the Flower Moon"by D. Grann.  Native American genocide in 1920s and the troubled creation of the FBI. Riveting American history.

Was in R.I last weekend for Hasbro's new show "Stretch Armstrong". Doing a voice on the animated series. Clip I saw was good!

A one and one with Trump and Putin is leaving a child alone in a room with a predator.

My eternal gratitude to Sky Conway for making Renegades Requiem happen and my thanks to Tim Russ  for directing it.

Music score for Renegades Requiem created by two very gifted young musicians from England. You'"ll be hearing great things about them!

It's not that I love everything. I jwant to speak about things I feel positively about. The other stuff I leave on the therapy couch.

Democrats: If you get money requests from from political campaigns through ACT BLUE please  examine the forms they send very carefully.

Everyone donates to charities if they can. After reading "Until Tuesday" I've decided to make this one one of those.

Danielle, looking forward to the Invader Zim you wrote cover to cover. Huge coincidence about having same last name.

Yesterday I visited the high school I graduated from 62 years ago. I talked to students about tolerance not acting

Fed Con: The most enthusiastic , energetic and supportive Star Trek fans anywhere. Just blew my mind away

I think this is going to be extraordinary.

the saga of Pavel Chekov. I've heard the story and it's very exciting. Undoubtedly, the  best about his life I've ever heard.

I grew up during W.W. II thinking Germans were born that way and gay people were not. 
Knowledge is a wonderful thing.

But enough about me.

I went for a med. test.Passed a doctor on way out. Asked if what I was feeling was normal. Replied, "I don't give free consultations."

You can't obligate friends to help. They do it out of friendship or not. Someone with millions of followers said he'd get the word out...

My contribution is an actor and as one of the writers and producers. My vision is to make it as edgy as "Mad Men" and "Game of Thrones".

Happy Birthday Jeffrey Combs!

I went to a lot of theatre schools, got a lot of training, did a lot of repertory where you do a different play every night. I took a lot of voice, movement, and acting classes.

I always try to make my characters people, and yet I always want to entertain. 

I gravitated to acting out of a mixture of instinct, naivete and opportunity. 

I also sort of find the idea that not only do actors want to please when they're onstage, I find actors really want to please off stage a lot of the time, don't they?

I think there's something in the human psyche that we're titillated by the person who flies too close to the candle and their wings get singed.

Feelings are universal, and if an actor's doing his job, I think he's making people sit there, and if it's in a movie or a theatre, going 'Hmm, yeah, I know that... I know that.' 

Writing has never been a driving force within me. 

It's who you know and who can help you.

I had auditioned a number of times, maybe three or four times, for Deep Space Nine. I only auditioned for The Next Generation once, and that’s when they were casting the pilot. All those years, and I was never invited to come in and audition for The Next Generation. Then DS9 came along and I kept getting in the batter’s box, thank you very much. One day I walked in and Jonathan Frakes was directing the episode. I knew Jonathan slightly. We’d both auditioned together for a film some years earlier and we had mutual friends.

The really lovely thing about it was that once I was on set I reconnected with Rene Auberjonois, who I’d done theater with. It just so happened that Rene was starting to cast for what was going to be his very first episode as a director (“Family Business”). Rene suggested me and, bless them, the producers agreed and cast me for Brunt. There was some resistance at first because I’d just done a show, but they went, “Yeah, but no one will know.” So out of that I start recurring, and then they tagged me for Weyoun, and the rest is DS9 history.

It’s all Ira. It’s all Ira. I did not know that Ira had been a fan of my work. He told me a story once. He said, “Even before you were on DS9, I saw you in a supermarket.” I said, “Well, did you come up and say hi?” He said, “No, no, no, I didn’t, but I saw you?” I was like, “Why didn’t you do that?” But it’s Ira. Bless him, and bless him again. I remember the day that I was standing on the sound stage in full Brunt makeup and Ira came up to me and said, “You know, we want to use you as another character, where we’ll see more of your face.” I said, “Oh, wow. That’s great. Thanks.” But I didn’t really believe it. It’s Hollywood. People say stuff. But Ira is a breed apart. He means what he says. And out of that came Weyoun. Of course, they killed Weyoun at the end of the episode, but the writers realized afterwards, “Wait a minute, this is a character we find interesting.” So that’s how Weyoun could be cloned at the drop of a hat. Problem solved.

Tiron had a weird nose, and I had problems breathing out of it. I had gills, and every time I’d breathe in through my nose, the nose would suck in. So I really had to make sure, technically, that I didn’t blow the makeup by breathing! But I got to work with Armin Shimerman. He was the sweetest guy. He was the one who came to me and said, “Welcome. If you want to run the scene, if you want to work on it, I am at your disposal. Just find me in my trailer or wherever. It doesn’t matter. We’re really glad you’re here.” Boy, that was a big thing. That generosity and professionalism is, to this day, what Armin Shimerman is all about.

That headpiece. Even though I had big ears, I could not hear. But, man, did I have the best time playing Brunt. To be able to make Quark squirm… delicious would be the word that I would use to describe Brunt.

Weyoun is your best friend. He really is, and he wants you to know that. He wants to alleviate all of your problems. There’s really nothing to worry about, until the knife is in your back, and then you realize you’ve been had. It was a wonderful counterpoint. I loved being so evil and yet being so good-natured and pleasant about it. That was a decision that I made, honestly, the first day that I shot Weyoun. I had no idea what a Vorta looked like until the makeup was done at 6:30 in the morning, when I looked in the mirror and went, “Who is this guy? OK, make a decision.” I decided right away that he was a very pleasant fellow, very placid. Sometimes you’ve got to run with your initial instinct, and in that case it was a good one.

I loved Krem. He was such a weak sweetheart. That really gave me the opportunity to play the opposite of Brunt, to show that there are sweet and good-hearted Ferengi as well. Of course, Max Grodenchik with Rom could make that argument in spades, but still, for me to able to play that note was really interesting. Also, introducing the Ferengi was interesting. If you notice, they never called them Ferengi in that episode because that would be going against the Trek bible. But, still, it was the first encounter with the Ferengi, and that was very cool.

Ah, Shran was a gift. I loved Shran. I got to play a completely different color, and I was excited about that. And I don’t mean blue. Shran gave me a totally different spectrum than I had with Brunt and Weyoun. I got to play a captain, someone with a real chip on his shoulder. My prototype… I looked at the Vulcans as if they were the British and the Andorians as if they were the Irish, and Jimmy Cagney was my ideal. That’s kind of the guy I saw Shran as, a tough little guy who holds his ground, and you’ve got to go through him, not around him.

Ooh, that’s a good one. I would say Shran, just because I like his attitude and his complexity. And there was still some stuff to explore about him. I think I’d like that.

It started, I’d say, five years ago, when I read a biography of Edgar Allan Poe, and I was just struck by why no one had ever really told this man’s story. To me, he’s America’s Van Gogh, just a compelling, tragic figure. 

Happy Birthday Alex Kurtzman!

With a series, keeping the quality high and writing incredibly fast, that's the first lesson you learn. You can't be real precious. When you're doing a feature film, you have 2 1/2 months; you sort of take your time. It's a different animal.

I am a crazy fan of movies like 'The Wild Bunch' or 'Wages of Fear,' where you're rooting for the bad guys. 

I think we invite people into our living rooms every week through the television because we have emotional connections to them, or they make us laugh or reflect some part of ourselves that we want to live in.

In one way or another, everybody has this experience in their lives... the moment when you have to define your relationship to family and how your family's made you who you are, whether you've spent your life running from your family or deeply connected to your family. 

The bad guy in any good storytelling is always, in some weird way, a mirror for your hero's journey and for the challenges that they are facing and is some weird physical externalization of that fear that the character is holding onto and has to overcome. 

What your character does for a living is one of the most important choices you can make in a screenplay, even if their job is tangential to the story, because it tells you everything about the condition of their life. Are they doing what they love? Are they doing what they hate?

When you're watching a Hitchcock movie, you, for most of the movie, are playing the guessing game. What's the endgame? What's the plot? How are these people involved? It's the best way to tell the story, and as a viewer, that's what you want to experience.

My house is basically like Halloween, 365 days a year, with my son.

There are very few actors who are truly good at improvising; that's a real skill.

I think there's a fundamental distinction between character-driven movies that are just really lovely slice-of-life movies and character-driven movies that you remember 20 or 30 years later; the common denominator with the ones you remember is that they all have some really complicated emotional problem at their core.

Here's what I'll say: some toys should be movies, and some toys should not be toys, and I'd like to believe we know the difference between those two things. The movies that work, work when there is a story there that you can take the toy out of, but when you put the toy in, it becomes an even more amazing experience for whatever reason. 

When I was a kid, going to Universal Studios, which was all I wanted to do, all the time, there was a show that was all the monsters, and I loved that show. I was obsessed with Dracula. I was obsessed with Frankenstein. I was obsessed with the Wolfman.

I think that the line between television and features started to blur a couple years ago. The standards started to become the same, which is that the idea had to be very loud. The show didn't have to be loud; the idea had to be loud. It had to cut through the clutter.

When you're a kid, and you're a superhero lover, the holy trinity is Batman, Superman and Spider-Man, so to be able to take any of those and play with it is a huge joy.