If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up psychological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair. If I were organizing in an orthodox Jewish community, I would not walk in there eating a ham sandwich unless I wanted to be rejected so I could have an excuse to cop out.
Between the ages of 18 and 20, I made three hour-long films. One was a superhero film called 'Carbolic Soap.' One was a cop film called 'Dead Right.' And the other was called 'A Fistful Of Fingers.'
I've learned a lot with every character, everything from being a cop, to a lawyer to a tattoo artist. And underneath that stuff, I've been really able to find myself through the characters. It's served as a cheap form of emotional therapy.
I don't know what it is about me and this cop thing, but I get a lot of cop offers. Everyone always assumes that I'm someone on the force, but as long as they are paying me, I will play a cop until the day I die.
I've been a character actress right from the beginning. I was no more like 'Cinderella' in my real life than I was like the neurotic poet in 'Cop.'
I would do 'Superbad,' and the next offers you would get would all be crazy cop characters or crazy security guards or something.
When your dad's a cop, calling 911 is really just like calling Dad at work.
G.I. humor is similar to cop humor.
I felt very patriotic playing a New York City cop.
'Beverly Hills Cop' opened up a whole world. I got the television show and movies, and I would go sign autographs for one hour and get paid $25,000.
My dad was a New York City cop. His father was a New York City fireman. And my mother's dad was a city taxi driver.
My first audition happened to be for 'Kindergarten Cop,' and I took that role. I was only starting to learn English at that point. Spanish is my first language, so they made me a speaking character in the movie. I didn't really know I was shooting a movie. I was just having a lot of fun with 30 kids my own age.
I've been watching cop procedurals my entire life, so when I saw an opportunity to make fun of one, I jumped at it.
Long time ago, I was going to be a New York cop, then got involved with this girl who was into acting, then got bit by the acting bug myself.
I don't know if I would be a good cop. As gruff as I come off, I take things very emotionally.
Cop shows are by definition melodramatic; they're larger than life. They create very stark contrasts and conflicts emotionally. They're provocative, assuming they grapple with - to the extent that cop shows are mirrors of the culture.
Most cop movies and TV shows are fantasies.
Ask any cop, and they'll assure you that it doesn't exactly take a forensics team from NCIS to figure out that someone is an illegal.
Every soldier, every cop who's faced with a decision to make, a life or death, does the best he or she can.
What 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz' and 'World's End' do is smuggle a different movie under the guise of a zombie movie or a cop or alien invasion movie. Even though they all have action and carnage, they are really films about growing up and taking responsibility.
I went home one night and told my dad that an older kid was picking on me. My Dad, a Korean War vet and a Chicago cop for 30 years, told me, 'You better pick up a brick and hit him in the head.' That's when I thought, 'Wow, I'm going to have to start dealing with things in a different way.'
To me, when I watch movies, it's always fun to watch the bad cop or the bad guy.
I'm a good authoritarian figure; I don't know why. 'Can you be a cop?' Sure. 'Can you be a Marine?' Absolutely. Well, at least in a movie.
My dad was a cop. My mom worked at various jobs - she worked as a homemaker, a bank teller, a bartender.
Cops, more than firefighters, EMTs or other public safety employees, almost always get the first glance of the human condition at the worst, most lethal moments; nobody calls a cop with good news.
A couple of my favourite cop movies are 'I Love a Man in Uniform' and 'The Long Goodbye.'
It's funny, I was talking to somebody who writes for a cop show, and he was saying how they aren't allowed to acknowledge Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, just because it has to be able to play forever.
I can remember when anything further downtown New York than Canal Street was risky and the whole area still looked like a '70s cop movie location; when the original loft-owners were more dash-than-cash, artistic types.
I was an infantry Marine, and there are only so many things you can do when you get out of the military that you can apply your job to. Either a janitor or a cop. I tried to do both of those things because what else are you going to do?
My castings sort of go in phases. There'll be several icy professional parts - a lawyer or a cop. And then there'll be the intelligent-but-wounded group and then the period things. It goes in sequence.
Maybe it's stress or anger or adrenaline or disillusionment or a bullying nature or simple fear of getting killed themselves, but there is a problem if a cop cannot tell the difference between a menacing gangster and the far more common person they encounter whose life is a little frayed and messy.
I definitely support cop acting more than cops, but all of them ain't bad, just some of them.
I've physically seen profiling. I've seen me walking up the street with my friends, and the police officers get out of their car and bust the hell out of my friends. And they can't do anything about it, and the cop gets back in his car and drives off.
When a black man is stopped by a cop for no apparent reason, that is covert racism. When a black woman shops in a fancy store and is followed by security guards, that is covert racism. It is more subtle than 1960s racism, but it is still racism.
With 'Rampart,' I read it and I'm like, 'That's the best role I've ever been offered. Phenomenal.' But, I was daunted, you know? Like the concept of trying to be a cop. It's just bizarre, man. Bizarre to even think about.
I wanted 'Southland' to feel immediate, like a ride-along, and to make it the closest thing possible to a cop reality show. We've got real cops out there every day. A lot of times we'll say, 'You guys just do what you normally do and we'll film it.'
