Richard Masur Quotes

#1. She [Susan Lucci] was extraordinary. She wouldn't look at the scene until you walked in to rehearse it. It was amazing to me. That's the impression I got anyway.

Richard Masur

#2. I'm grateful I got the opportunity to do it because I know this now. If anybody ever asked me to do a daytime show again I would go no, no. I can't do that. Not because it's beneath me. It's above me. It's beyond my resources.

Richard Masur

#3. I used to be the youngest person on the set [of Bored To Death]. Now I'm very often the oldest person on the set. I feel lucky about that, to be honest. Lena [Dunham], by the way is a doll to me. So much fun to work with and really open.

Richard Masur

#4. I've worked with a ginormous number of people over the years. What happens when you've been around for a while, when you run into people whose work you've seen and liked and they have seen and liked your work, there's a sense of you kind of know each other even though you don't.

Richard Masur

#5. I did my first movie,a movie called Whiffs, which very few people ever saw.

Richard Masur

#6. I consider anybody who has been able to make a living in this business [movie business] without having to do something else for a living for any period of time let alone 43 years would be a miracle.

Richard Masur

#7. I have to say I was very lucky in this [movie] business. I was in the right place at the right time when I first got started.

Richard Masur

#8. The deaf community is in a favorable position because they have a national theatre and training groups of their own to get them started. Deaf actors have often acquired very valuable skills and experience before they get their break.

Richard Masur

#9. I actually then went on to direct an after-school special where one of the characters was deaf. They hired me without even knowing I had any connection to the community.

Richard Masur

#10. Being an actor myself I realize that all actors believe they are qualified to play any role. If you showed me a script with a black woman character I would tell you that I could do it. That is what we do. We act as if we are someone else.

Richard Masur

#11. I moved out to L.A. in July and Hot L Baltimore started in September or October. So I had done a few things. I'd done a Mary [Tyler Moore]. I'd done a Waltons. I hadn't done a Rhoda yet I don't think.

Richard Masur

#12. Spelling is very easy to practice yourself whereas signing is not. So I would sit on the subway riding around New York and I would spell whatever I would see. When I watched a movie I would spell words as they came up.

Richard Masur

#13. But people who think they can project themselves into deafness are mistaken because you can't. And I'm not talking about imagining what a deaf person's whole life is like I even mean just realizing what it is like for an instant.

Richard Masur

#14. If people don't actively knock the scenery over and they get the words out in something approximating the right order, you're moving on.

Richard Masur

#15. I did a film many years ago called The Man Without A Face.Gaby [Hoffmann] was in with Mel Gibson. That was his directing debut. He did a great job.

Richard Masur

#16. I'm one of the handful of survivors of the guys I came up with.

Richard Masur

#17. You have to give access to people with disabilities but there is no requirement to hire them. What I mean by affirmative obligation is that producers must take the necessary steps to include opportunities for people with disabilities and a vast majority of them do.

Richard Masur

#18. There is no relation to sound for deaf people. It is a totally different mental process.

Richard Masur

#19. I am so grateful for One Day At A Time, even though for years and years and years people would go, "Oh, you were on One Day At A Time." I [am on the show] for about seven months and then this haunts me for the rest of my life. No, I had no regrets.

Richard Masur

#20. In a very real way Norman [Lear] godfathered me into my career. He was the best mentor anybody could have ever had.

Richard Masur

#21. Most profoundly deaf people have speech that is very difficult to understand.

Richard Masur

#22. No one will ever argue that someone could have played Helen Keller better than Patty Duke. It was an incredibly demanding role and I don't think anyone can argue that it was a false performance.

Richard Masur

#23. For example, the first time McDonald's put a deaf person in a commercial they saw a jump in sales. I think that happens with other kinds of disabilities and products and that is something that is being realized more and more.

Richard Masur

#24. I had a very low voice for the character in the show. I said, "That's not actually my voice. That's the character's voice." I'm being such an actor.

Richard Masur

#25. You have to give people the opportunity to prove themselves.

Richard Masur

#26. I know deaf people. I have discussed the issues with them I've also thought about them a lot so I have some insights that go a little further than people who haven't had contact with the deaf community.

Richard Masur