Sam Elliott

“I did beef ads for about eight years because I love the people in that industry, and there are a lot of people who make their living in the beef world. Ranchers, primarily.”

“The opportunity, number one, to work with Ang Lee is an amazing thing for me.”

“My voice gets recognized before anything else. It's always gotten attention. In choruses at church and school, I started as a tenor, moved to a baritone and finally became a bass. I knew the...”

“You know, I know a lot of lifeguards. Both my parents were lifeguards at a lake in El Paso, Texas. I was a lifeguard in a swimming pool in Portland, Ore. And I have known and met and befrien...”

“I've spent my entire career on horseback or on a motorcycle. It boxes you in, the way people perceive you. I read a lot of scripts. Most of 'em go to other actors.”

“It's never going to get better than working opposite an actor like Jeff Bridges. That's as good as it gets. I don't even know what to refer to him as. He's just a great guy. He's iconic on h...”

“I've had those periods in my career when I was sitting around waiting for a phone call and had an agent who was doing the same thing rather than going out there to shake the bushes looking f...”

“I was in the cement end of the construction business, as a laborer. I was pouring concrete, and stripping forms off of set concrete, and pulling nails, and stacking plywood, and doing that k...”

“Making movies is never going to get better than working on a Coen brothers project.”

“My dad worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service, and he worked for the Department of Interior, you know, like the federal government. And consequently, I was outdoors a lot in my lifetime.”

“I understand lost love, and I think that can destroy a man more than anything if it was a deep love that is lost somehow.”

“I think I might have been a more interesting actor, had more of a career earlier on, if I had more formal preparation. When I see something ten years later that I was in I think, 'Boy, would...”

“The two things that I wanted in my life were to have a movie career and to be married, to have a family. And it's an embarrassment of riches that I've got both.”

“I'll do anything. I'll shave my head for the right job. I'm partial to my facial hair, I guess, but I also enjoy doing something where I look totally different, which is kind of the reason w...”

“Looking back on the long haul in my career, little films, big films, TV, the Western thing has been really good to me.”

“My family is all from the Southwest. My great-great-grandfather was at the Battle of San Jacinto with Sam Houston.”

“Hugh Grant is the main man. He's the number one romantic comedy man in the world.”

“I'm not a hunter, but I've been around guns all my life. I'm a great shot.”

“I truly loved Jason Reitman. I was there on his first film, 'Thank You For Smoking,' and I'd go work with him to do anything.”

“I grew up in Sacramento and spent a lot of time in the Saturday matinee. I just thought, 'Wow.' It's that magic of sitting in a dark theater as a little kid. That was in the '50s.”