Top 40 Vincent D'Onofrio Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The search for the truth is not for the faint-hearted.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

2. “All of us are trying to achieve 100 percent in our work. That’s all we struggle to do. We never do, but we never stop trying until the day we die. It’s that struggle to achieve 100 percent, that’s where our performance lies, that’s what the audience gets. They get the struggle.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

3. “Evil changes everybody!”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

4. “Everybody’s motivation comes from the core of who they are.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

5. “Then I did Mystic Pizza, just to do something I wasn’t fat in.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

6. “It’s pretty simple, pretty obvious: that people’s first impressions of people are really a big mistake.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

7. “To me the definition of true masculinity – and femininity, too – is being able to lay in your own skin comfortably.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

8. “It’s like why people read scary books or go see scary movies. Because it creates a distance. They’re scared, but they’re not going to get hurt.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

9. “The Whole Wide World is the first movie I’ve ever produced.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

10. “When you’re a child you’re able to assimilate so easily into any situation. You even start talking like the people you’re around. I wasn’t conscious that I was so good at that until I started to truly feel like an actor.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

11. “Our show is different, because it’s not about law and order, it’s about psychology, the intent of somebody.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

12. “My partner Dan Ireland wants me to direct, and I read a lot of scripts – some good enough that I could see myself. But then it’s like, so what? Who cares? Let someone else direct it.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

13. “So I moved to Europe and only came back when directors like Robert Altman would call me after they’d seen my work in Full Metal Jacket.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

14. “Acting is not a mystery. There’s nothing that I know that other actors don’t know. We all act, we’re all actors, we all know the same thing. The only thing that separates us is experience.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

15. “The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That’s Acting 101.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

16. “I found my niche as a character actor, and I’ve never felt like a movie star or teen idol and never wanted to.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

17. “Im a character actor, and I made a choice when I was young, after Mystic Pizza, not to go for the mainstream stuff, and to do a more eclectic kind of route.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

18. “People who are extremely inside their head, like he was, are caught in a neurosis that goes round and round. Then something will hook them and take them to their end and they can’t control it.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

19. “When I was younger I used to pick things just to face the fear.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

20. “Unless you look like Brad Pitt, it’s really hard to have full control of your character.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

21. “And I have been able to establish this sort of decent reputation as being a decent character actor.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

22. “What kind of recognition do I deserve? I don’t deserve any recognition.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

23. “If you try to go beyond your interests just for the sake of pretensions or wealth, your art becomes less legitimate.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

24. “The most fun you can possibly have as an actor is to walk that line between what’s real and what’s interesting.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

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25. “Look, all you can do when you find your niche is go with it.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

26. “When I was younger, it was about doing something that made me nervous. Now, it’s for many different reasons. I’ve had the opportunity to have fun. I don’t know why that is, but I like it.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

Featured in: Fun Quotes

27. “No, I knew when I was doing theater in New York that this was what I was supposed to be doing.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

28. “I’ll be working the rest of my life because I’m a character actor and don’t have to worry about box office.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

29. “At our best, it’s a good experience but we do 22 episodes a year, so there are some clunkers.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

30. “I’ve never tried to be something I’m not.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

31. “This haunting idea of becoming a celebrity doesn’t settle well with me at all.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

32. “When you are a character actor they trust you will go in and give them a full character and leave.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

33. “The only thing I do worry about is that the more films I do the more visible I am going to become as a personality because of press and because of the sheer quantity of films.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

34. “And then, as the years went on, I just kept moving along, busting into doors and getting roles, until I started to actually believe that what these other people were saying was true.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

35. “The minute you start feeling like you’ve got it down, you know what you’re doing, you’re dead in the water.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

36. “I think that being a producer is business and being an actor is art.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

37. “I want every episode to feel like we still haven’t done this right yet.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

38. “I took a route of acting, rather than starmaking, so it cost me a lot financially.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

39. “I’ve never played a master thief. And I think I am one.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

40. “The more you are known, the more difficult it is to hide behind characters.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

41. “But the one thing that I did do was establish myself as a good actor.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio

42. “So a failed movie is not going to ruin my career.”

— Vincent D'Onofrio