I have become convinced that everything that is classy doesn't go away.
Adam West
In the late '60s, there were the the three B's: The Beatles, Batman, and Bond.
I love to do voiceover because, for me, if you know what you're doing, it's simple. No makeup, no costuming, none of the baloney. None of the egos - you don't have to deal with all that crap. I love voiceovers.
When you go to the Sistine Chapel with Sophia Loren, it can be quite some time before your thoughts turn to the ceiling.
I just go my own way. If my agent calls and presents me with something, and I find it refreshing or illuminating, yeah, I'll do it.
When you wear a mask and create a character, nothing will pigeonhole you faster.
Maybe we could find some way to send barges of trash to the sun and incinerate it all. Hey, it's an idea. It's an idea!
Typecasting is really rampant in Hollywood, and because I played a costumed character and did it successfully, it was a real stigma.
I've always shied away from 'Where are they now?' shows, because I've been lucky enough to keep working, and people know where I am.
If you hang around long enough, they think you're good. It's either my tenacity or stupidity - I'm not sure which.
Over the years, I've learned that if you can just hang in there and, regardless of what's presented to you, take it as a challenge and try to bring in something fresh, then it works.
Any incarnation of 'Batman' I am delighted to do.
My grandfather and my father had wheat ranches, so we had quite a few trucks around and a lot of mules. Talk about horsepower - we had mule power.
I did a character called Captain Q for Nestle's Quik. Those commercials were kind of funny.
One of the most gratifying, rewarding things is when people come up, and they tell you how the show influenced their lives in a very positive way. When I do these things like Comic Con, I get people who are lawyers, judges, plumbers, carpenters, and entire families, and it's mostly for 'Batman.' But now, amazingly, it's also for 'Family Guy.'
I'm like Madonna: I keep reinventing myself.
I don't want to be Batman. Let Val Kilmer do it. I just want to be Uncle Batman. I have this whole 'warm relationship' plot in my mind. In the final scenes, the new Batmobile breaks down, the new Batman's stranded on the side of the road. We grab our old Batmobile, pick him up and drive away.
If you're a plumber, you plumb. I'm an actor. I act.
Some nights, I wear my cape, and I go out on the pier. It is foggy... I look for... Riddler.
It's a wonderful thing to be able to make fun of yourself and to do it in a way that sort of preserves your dignity but, at the same time, lets you play the theater of the absurd.
The word that scares the hell out of me is 'frail.' I don't want to be frail.
I've hung on for a long time in this business and had some success, and I think it's keeping an open mind and being curious and having a sense of humor about oneself that's important.
I have no patience with dinosaurs.
My art, like my acting, is a profound expression of poetic license.
Batman had a certain speech pattern that I established because he was always Sherlock Holmes-ian. He was Basil Rathbone. In other words, he was always musing about something.
Anything with 'Family Guy' is great.
I grew up on a ranch in Walla Walla, Washington. Except for one lawyer, I don't remember anyone in my family being anything else but ranchers.
Isn't it fun to be nuts? Isn't it fun to be crazy?
Not to be able to move around or do things without thinking - that's tough. I may end up that way, but if I do, I hope to hell my intellect will take over, and I'll find some kind of joy and a way to contribute.
To be an icon... I guess that's a privilege.
You can't play Batman in a serious, square-jawed, straight-ahead way without giving the audience the sense that there's something behind that mask waiting to get out, that he's a little crazed; he's strange.
Crummy pictures, live appearances, circuses, avant garde theater, dinner theater. I've done it all. I've been shot out of cannons. I know what the people want. I'm out there with the people.
I've always been able to work. I think it's an actor's obligation to keep working if you can.
I think it's an actor's job, if you can, to keep working and to keep using that muscle. First of all, you've got to pay the bills, but it also helps you develop.
There was a time when 'Batman' really kept me from getting some pretty good roles, and I was asked to do what I figured were important features. However, Batman was there, and very few people would take a chance on me walking onto the screen. And they'd be taking people away from the story.
To play the leading man in a 'Three Stooges' movie, you've got to think funny. Thank God I think funny.
I love to go home and do the chores and read.
I've been almost everywhere. But I've never been to the steppes of Latvia. It's something I've always wanted to do.
The Batmobile wasn't a stickshift, and it was a challenge to drive, believe me.
I get called 'Mayor West' a lot in airports. I've been very fortunate to have a fan base that keeps growing, and the work gets such a warm response and humor from people.
I used to spend hours just sitting in an old wreck of a car with a stickshift; I'd just sit there and shift.
I was a maverick. I went to five different colleges looking for I don't know quite what.
When 'Family Guy' came along, it was like a gift, and it expanded my fan base.
Anything that triggers good memories can't be all bad.
I'm interested in film - any aspect - acting, directing, writing.
When I was getting started, I was so busy just fighting my way through, and I was under contract at Warner Brothers. I did 40 hours of color television with the late Robert Taylor as a young cop.
You've got a guy in a cape and tights running around fighting crime 24-7; this is not normal. But it worked because the kids loved it and the adults laughed with it.
When I got the part, I tried to remember Batman as I knew him when I was a kid - with emotional recall.
In a very real sense, I represent pop culture in an iconic way. It's been very good to me, so anything I can do to help the fans to tumble along - it's good.
I have the curse of thinking funny!
