Neverisms

If you relax, the audience relaxes.JAMES CAGNEY, advice to actors

Never let yourself get between you and your character.MICHAEL CAINE, in What’s It All About? (1992)

In this memoir, Caine said he became an actor in part because of advice he got from his father: “Never do a job where you can be replaced by a machine.”

Never meddle with play-actors, for they’re a favored race.MIGUEL DE CERVANTES, from Don Quixote (1605)

We tend to think that the worship of actors—and the somewhat exalted status they hold in society—is a modern phenomenon, but this suggests it is a longstanding tradition.

Never look as if you are lost.

Always look as if you know exactly where you are going.JOAN COLLINS

Collins added, “If you don’t know where you are going, head straight for the bar.”

Rule number one: never carry a gun.

If you carry a gun you may be tempted to use it.

Rule number two: never trust a naked woman.SEAN CONNERY, in the 1999 film Entrapment

(screenplay by Ron Bass & William Broyles)

In the film, Connery plays the role of Robert “Mac” MacDougal, an aging international art thief. In this scene, he explains “The Rules” to his unlikely partner, a sexy insurance investigator (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who needs his help in the investigation of an art heist.

Never stop fighting till the fight is done.KEVIN COSTNER, as G-man Eliot Ness,

in the 1987 film The Untouchables

(screenplay by David Mamet)

This was a tagline for the movie. It came at the very end of the film, just after Capone has been convicted. Ness, surrounded by reporters, says, “Never stop, never stop fighting till the fight is done.” Capone, who can barely hear Ness amidst the pandemonium, says, “What’d he say? Whadda you saying?” After Ness replies, “I said never stop fighting till the fight is done,” he adds, “It’s over.”

Never let it be said that your anal-retentive

attention to detail never yielded positive results.MATT DAMON, to Ben Affleck, in the 1999 film Dogma

(screenplay by Kevin Smith)

This line is one of the highlights of a quirky black comedy in which Damon (as Loki) and Affleck (as Bartleby) play two renegade angels who, because of Bartleby’s attention to detail, discover a loophole that may get them readmitted to heaven.

Remember, you are a star.

Never go across the alley, even to dump garbage,

unless you are dressed to the teeth.CECIL B. DEMILLE, his stock advice to film stars

Never judge a book by its movie.J. W. EAGAN

This alteration of Never judge a book by its cover has been around for decades, but I’ve never been able to learn anything about the mysterious Mr. Eagan. The quotation describes a popular view: movies rarely do justice to the books on which they are based.

Never lose your openness,

your childish enthusiasm throughout the journey that is life,

and things will come your way.FEDERICO FELLINI, advice to actors

Never work with animals or children.W. C. FIELDS

This became a signature line for Fields, even though he was not the author (it was a show-business maxim he learned early in his career). The saying has been repeated countless times, and even spawned a great insult. In 1985, Gabriel Byrne appeared in his first starring role in Defense of the Realm, a fast-paced political thriller costarring Greta Scacchi and the English actor Denholm Elliott. Byrne, who found Elliott to be extremely difficult to work with, quipped in a post-film interview: “I amended the actor’s cliche to: ‘Never work with children, animals, or Denholm Elliott.’”

Take your work seriously, but never yourself.MARGOT FONTEYN, advice to stage performers

Never tell me the odds.HARRISON FORD, in The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

(screenplay by Leigh Bracket & Lawrence Kasdan)

Ford, in the role of Han Solo, says this to C-3PO, who has just informed him: “Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1.” The line comes from the fifth episode in George Lucas’s Star Wars series.

Never let pride be your guiding principle.MORGAN FREEMAN, in a 1991 Essence magazine profile

Never give up; and never, under any circumstances,

no matter what—never face the facts.RUTH GORDON

In general, ignoring the facts is a questionable strategy, but there are some occupations—such as acting—where the competition is so stiff and success so unlikely that a certain amount of denial might actually be helpful. Marlo Thomas once said similarly: “Never face facts; if you do you’ll never get up in the morning.”

Never say never.

Say never about something and life will spit it right back at you.MELANIE GRIFFITH, as Dora DuFran, in the

1995 CBS made- for-TV movie Buffalo Girls

(teleplay by Cynthia Whitcomb)

Whitcomb based her script on Larry McMurtry’s 1990 novel Buffalo Girls, streamlining—and I think, improving—some of his words in the process. In the book, the passage goes this way: “Well, you shouldn’t say you’ll never do something,” Dora told her. “Say it and life will spit it back at you.”

Never joke about a woman’s hair, clothes, or menstrual cycle.JOHN HANNAH, to Gwyneth Paltrow,

in the 1998 film Sliding Doors

(screenplay by Peter Howitt)

Early in the film, the character James Hammerton (John Hannah) notices that Helen Quilley (Paltrow) is sporting a new haircut. After he says, “Haircut suits you, by the way,” Helen demurs. To prove his compliment was genuine, he says, “No, it does, it does. No gag.” He then adds the never joke line to