Quotes

I enjoy playing people that are totally different than me. It's a challenge to get inside these people's heads and wonder why they would have these beliefs.

I never thought I'd reach 21. I used to feel that was old, but growing old doesn't scare me anymore. I just want to have done something super special and have had someone to do it with.

I've always liked women. But I don't want somebody who likes me because I'm famous. I like girls who are intelligent and who are kind of quiet like me.

(1996, Movieline Magazine) If the career doesn't work out, I'll definitely go to college and try another line of work. If that doesn't pan out, I can always go shoot up and be a rock star.

[1996, on landing Before and After (1996)] Barbet (Schroeder) and I met two years ago in an office, and, at the time, he was seeing everybody. It was the role, out of all the scripts I have read, that I really wanted the most. It was almost like such a great part that you don't even have to act to look great on film. Two years later, I got a call from my agent that the movie was on again and that Barbet wanted me and that was that.

[on filming The Grass Harp (1995)] Definitely a troubled shoot. I'm kind of judgemental because I read the book and that was so beautifully written, I really don't know too much about the trouble, except that the director wasn't really getting along with the studio. They just didn't click. It was a weird shoot.

[1996, Movieline Magazine] I am very, very competitive and ambitious. I would definitely fight hard for a role I believed in. But I will never kiss anybody's ass. No way, man, I would say to Quentin Tarantino, 'Hey, man, pretty awesome', but I wouldn't be like 'Hey, man, let me do one of your movies', even if to do one of his movies would be totally trippy.

[1996, on his level of fame] No gun, no bodyguard, cause that would probably freak me out. It's really not that big yet, my fame. Hopefully it will be that big one day.

When [newspapers and magazines] talk about me, it has nothing to do with my career, so I'm like, whatever. Fans are what matters. Fans I like. Those are the people that go to the movies, pay for the tickets and get me the parts.

Being famous kind of makes you feel like a freak. And you are, in a way.

Who wants to go to school and be asked for, like, 20 autographs?

Little Odessa (1994). Of all my movies, it's the one that I still really love when I watch it and I'm pretty happy with what I did in that.

I don't think anyone has a normal family.

If I was in a room with a bunch of skinheads talking about racism, then I would be disturbed, but after we finished a take, we were normal people again.

Detroit was kind of a random thing where it was like a chance to be in a rock 'n' roll movie.

I know a lot of people my age are still trying to figure out what to do, and I consider myself lucky that I can make a living doing something that I truly enjoy.

It hasn't been a totally smooth road, but in the whole span of things I feel like a very lucky person.

I had a hard time going back to school after T2. I really didn't want to go to private school.

I've always wanted to do a movie that takes place in the 70's and was about rock and roll and getting high, like Dazed and Confused (1993) or Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).

People aren't born racist.

By the time I'm old, I'm sure I'll have lived a full enough life. I think we're mortal for a reason. Life gets tiring, man!

Jim Cameron used to call me 'Special Ed.'

When I was a kid, the idea of why I wanted acting to be the thing I do for the rest of my life was different. It was, oh yeah, I'll get girls and be famous.

A lot of things that you lose you just can't help - your naiveness and all that.

[on "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines"] It's the growing pains of me. I was part of the project and had a very nice deal but then I guess to celebrate I went out and overdosed on coke and kind of destroyed that whole thing. But I learned my lesson and I'm back on track.

I had a lot of awesome things happen but everything comes with a price, nothing is free. When I was younger, I didn't have too many people looking out for me and I was left to run wild. I didn't know how to manage my money. If I was older, I wouldn't have made so many bad decisions.

I f***ed over so many people when I was on drugs, gaining back the trust of the people that work with you when you've flaked on them so much is a long process. It's like the friendship that happens after a bad breakup - people are learning to trust me again. It's great and things are slowly starting to get going again.

When I was high, I had camaraderie with other people. Just drinking and partying. All of a sudden, I felt like I was with people and I fit in somehow. That's how it started.

It sounds weird for me to be talking about teeth because I don't live and breathe the way I look but every time I looked in the mirror, it just bummed me out as a reminder of what I had done for all those years.

[on giving up heroin] It's the bravest thing I've ever done in my life to not use. I'm not someone who likes to be controlled by anything or anyone and I didn't want to be a slave to it any more.

That's the way I was all day. It's amazing I'm still alive - there were a couple of close calls. I definitely OD'd but that's the cycle, you know. Once you get in there, it's so hard to see a way out.

It feels great to be back on set and sober too. I didn't feel hungover when I went to work. There's other sober people at work which is weird because if you're not sober, you're not hanging out with the other sober people. It was cool. I really enjoyed it and I feel like I can be more in the moment. I love to work. We'll see what happens.

I was never a normal teenager. I had a very un-normal life. I was almost destined for [drug addiction]. In a weird way, I never really felt like I fit in.

I've learned as time goes on, it's easier than I thought it would be. I like myself better, people definitely like me better sober.

[on his drug abuse to the Daily Mail] In my twenties, I was partying and wanting to go out every night, but I was so tired and I'd be drunk and want to do more cocaine so I could wake up and drink some more. But that all spirals into, now I'm whacked out of my head and want to go to bed, so now I need something to put me to sleep which would be Xanax or heroin.

[1996] [We have] Frances the dog and a lot of cats. We're just crazy animal lovers. But no, I'm not going to tell you how many cats, because it will wind up in some crazy newspaper, 'Eddie Furlong Has One Hundred Cats.'