The year in soundbites

A look back at the year in quotes as told to Irish Times writers in 2002.

US director Joel Schumacher on working with Val Kilmer: "I know you're going to laugh at this, but I mean it in all sincerity - he really belongs in a nuthouse. He's not a difficult actor - he's a psycho."

Liam Neeson gets competitive with fellow Star Wars actor Harrison Ford: "When one of the younger cast members said, 'Harrison seems in a bad mood today', I replied, 'Oh, that's because he never got to be a Jedi. I'm a Jedi, he's just Han Solo'."

Conductor Benjamin Zander: "My earliest experiences of music were from him [his father]. He played as if he was just suffused with joy. He would play at the piano and it looked like somebody in ecstasy. You know that scene from When Harry Met Sally? I said to myself, 'Whatever he's having, I want that.'"

Dublin comic Ian MacPherson on writing and drama "This is more of a theatre-style work, which is strange because when I was growing up, my parents - who never believed in corporal punishment - would always threaten to bring us to the Abbey if we were bold."

Singer-songwriter Nina Hynes: "I'm not so much interested in separating the girls from the boys. Initially, when the girls would get up to play, they'd be less confident because Irish rock was a bit of a boy's world. But things are more open now, and it doesn't really matter what sex you are."

Actor, novelist and director Ethan Hawke on fame "We live in such a culture of celebrity that I feel like so many young people I meet and who want to get into acting, that all they really want is to be famous. But if that's what you want and even if you get it, you're destined to be miserable for your whole life."

Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips: "I look at a lot of magazines, and they may describe us as 'the coolest band in the universe' at the beginning of the issue, but towards the back they're calling another band the exact same thing. I don't mean to put them down, but magazines like NME need 20 coolest bands in the universe for them to be the coolest magazine. So even though it's a compliment, I don't think of it as being real. If we're perceived as being that today, then fine, but it's not a title you can aspire to. You're given it, and you say thanks."

Artist Sean Scully on the status of painters in the conceptually orientated art world: "They're like the American Indians ceding more and more land. Those Indians should have got organised. I do think you've got to fight for it. It is a fight. You can't just be bashed over the head all the time, you've got to bash back . When I tell people what I'm doing they say, 'But aren't there students who are video artists at the academy?' And I say, 'Yeah, but not in my class.' I thought of getting T-shirts printed for my class. On the front they'd say 'I paint therefore . . .' and on the back '. . . I am mistaken'. That way, they'd get accustomed to being treated like assholes so be used to it later in life."

Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees: "Have you seen Galaxy Quest, the movie about fictitious sci-fi characters visited by real aliens to save their planet? That's what happened to The Monkees! It started out with fictitious people and all of a sudden we were made into a real pop band."

Samantha Morton at the Oscars: "I didn't wear a dress. I'd just had my baby and still had my 'baby-blubber', as they call it. I'd put on quite a bit of weight during the pregnancy. And I was breast feeding, so my boobs were gi-normous. I had to wear these breast-shields so I didn't leak and squirt at everybody. I thought: what can I wear that won't show the pads? So I just wore an ordinary suit and I was voted the worst-dressed person at the Oscars. It was such an honour. I was so thrilled."

Rohinton Mistry on being constantly compared with Dickens: "I don't see it. Dickens wrote in black and white; it is a cultural, social, political sprawl. Not the shade of grey I write in . . . I have not read many 19th-century novels."

Johannes Meissl, second violinist of the Artis String Quartet: "A great deal of the quartet repertoire requires a leading and sometimes also a kind of prima donna first violin - it's in the music. And most of the time it requires a second violin who is able to adjust, to follow, to change roles very quickly. The second violin requires the ability to play like a first violin, but you have to be prepared not to do it all the time."

William Eddins, principal guest conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra: "It's not easy finding an orchestra who'll let some 22-year-old idiot get up in front of them and say, 'I'd like to experiment, now.' I remember like it was yesterday the first time I got up in front of a professional orchestra for the first time. It was the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and it was Peter and the Wolf, something they could play in their sleep. The first minute and a half was fine, and then I did something with my right elbow - to this day I don't know what - and the cellos started slowing down. I almost went into a dead panic. Then suddenly I realised, there's a huge difference from a student orchestra to a professional orchestra. It's like driving a 63 Beetle and going to a modern-day 308 Ferrari Testarossa."

Gift Grub comic Mario Rosenstock on the two Berties: "I saw Bertie being interviewed on TV3. The real Bertie spoke of how difficult it was to get up at 5 a.m. every morning so he could get in to the Today FM studio. And he actually went into our impersonation of him. With Bertie, it's a strange one, because we portray him as a bit of a bumbling character, although endearing in a sense. We really couldn't believe it after the last election, when people e-mailed in saying that they had voted for the real Bertie because of us."

Actor Frank Kelly on the "method" behind Father Jack in Father Ted: "I had to do a very particular minimalist style of acting, it's called 'numb buttock' acting, you're sitting there for 14 minutes and then get to deliver one line."

Eminem on why he went all celluloid with Eight Mile: "Some people who saw my music videos approached me to act in films, but I always held back - because, you know, I'm not an actor - until Eight Mile came along and that was because it really, authentically showed what the hip-hop scene was like where I'm from in Detroit four or five years ago, which also was the time when I was coming up."

French director Claude Miller on negative Parisian critical reaction to Amelie: "Well, critics are another problem. There are always critics who find any form of commercial success to be suspect. To say that Amelie is a Fascist movie because everybody's happy in it does not make any sense."

Irish comic Dara O'Briain on the perils of success at the Montreal Comedy Festival: "Doing the gala is a big deal and because it's North American television they give you seven minutes, so it has to be tightly scripted and they're very, very strict about profanity - I was told I couldn't use 'Jesus' or 'Christ' in the act, which for me was difficult, because they're the terms I use when I'm told I can't use the word 'fuck'. And the tragedy here was that because I had to stay on to do the gala, I had to cancel a gig in a nightclub in Killarney."

Singer/songwriter Tori Amos on how her album went looking for the real America: "It's about what America is and how it should be understood - that it shouldn't be seen as this country that's being pimped out by our leaders."

Mark Romanek, director of One Hour Photo, on why the film's star Robin Williams nauseates some viewers: "Robin made those films that annoy people for families - for his own family. And he couldn't give a fuck if 50-year-old journalists enjoy them or not. His son laughed at them, and that brought Robin a lot of joy. They're for children!"

Morrissey on the state of popular music: "I find it mesmerising. I go into meetings with these record company people and they will sit there and tell me that they still have a piece of my shirt that they tore off me during a gig in 1988 and then they will ask me about the new songs I have recorded and they'll say: 'Will they blend in with what's happening now?' and I'll say: 'Jaysus, I hope not'."

English comic Francesca Martinez on having cerebral palsy: "I found that stand-up comedy is one profession where my disability is a plus. Comedy embraces anybody with a difference, be they fat, ugly, or otherwise. It sounds funny, but it does help in this profession to have something which makes you stand out in the beginning, but I have no intention of being a one-trick pony - as in, the comic with cerebral palsy".

Sculptor/sideshows expert Stephen Dee on the evolution of "freaks": "What you get today is people piercing themselves all over, or tattooing themselves or, like the Jim Rose Circus, performing stunts with parts of their body. It's different from what went before. I think, though, that what has really happened is that the sideshow of old has now mutated into another form. You have sideshow TV like Jerry Springer, where it's about freakish behaviour, and the hypocrisy here is that people used to call the sideshows of old gross and unsophisticated."

Neil Diamond: "I'm just out of the loop as far as some critics are concerned. I've never been 'experimental', they say . . . I've had that elitist stuff thrown at me; let me tell you one thing: all my music is experimental and while the fashions of music change, the music will have the last word."

Actress Barbara Hershey: "Hemingway was actually talking about writing when he said: If you know something really well, you can leave things out and that thing will still be there; but if you don't know something well, you will probably over-describe it. And film is such a microscope, you can't do too much. You just have to let go of the life raft. That's the closest I can get to saying how I do it."

Comedian Pat Shortt on indigenous humour: "If the work you do is vaudeville, you can bring it anywhere . . . We don't see any point in changing what we do because the essence of our work is in where we come from. If we were to do, say a sitcom for British television, it would still be the two of us in a flat in London, doing what we always do. It's what Glasgow is to Billy Connolly or New York to Woody Allen. We want to stay true to our material."

Miramax supreme Harvey Weinstein on being dubbed Harvey Scissorhands for re-editing movies: "There are so many incidents when these directors 'fess up. When they go before St Peter they're all going to say stuff like: 'You know, Harvey was right about that fight scene or that love scene - it bored the shit out of me.' Would you really like me to put another hour back into In the Bedroom, or do you really want to see the four-hour Iris? I'm happy to show you all that, but I don't think you would care to see it."

Mezzo-soprano Alison Browner: "You don't consciously decide to become a singer. I think singing discovers you. It's the same as repertoire. I don't think a singer decides on repertoire. I think the repertoire finds the singer."

Panic Room director David Fincher on why he makes movies: "I have no other skills."

Michael Caine on his drag scenes in Dressed to Kill and The Actors: "Yes, everyone says I have very good legs, but I look terrible as a woman. I certainly wouldn't go out with me if I looked like that!"

Comic Adam Hills on airport security: "I just found the attitude of people was incredible. Once they took me aside and I explained my right leg is made out of titanium. They would get really embarrassed. I'd ask them if they wanted me to take it off so they could search it, but they'd just wave me on really quickly. It was almost like they'd prefer for the plane to blow-up rather than offend a 'spastic'."

French director Gaspar Noe on his controversial rape and revenge drama, Irreversible: "This film is not a crime, it depicts a crime. I see people killing each other with machetes on the 8.30 TV news. There are lots of films today in which people are killed or raped, but very few really elicit an emotional response."

Singer-songwriter Neil Hannon: "What real pop music is, it's taking a quite simple idea and putting it in a straightforward, understandable way, that gets an immediate emotional response. But you can do that using the most complicated methods. I think that's the key with a lot of the best music, art, literature."

Hugh Grant: "I used to go on a lot of package tours pre-Four Weddings. I was actually Mr Palma 1984. I had to do three things - an Elvis impersonation, a kissing competition and then I had to strip down to my underwear, and I won. So I think very fondly of Majorca."

Noel Gallagher of Oasis: "Liam gets drunk and he goes out, and if someone gets on his nerves . . . he'll slap a photographer, or he'll end up having a row with someone over a parking space or summat. It doesn't bother me that Liam drinks, because he's now responsible for a third of the musical output of the band, so if he fucks up, he's cutting his own nose off to spite his face." (discussing his younger brother's behaviour a few months before an incident in Munich when Liam lost his two front teeth)

Project artistic director Willie White: "We have core of strong companies across theatre and dance, but a curious absence of anyone coming through. So I very much want to find, stimulate and encourage new theatre-makers in every way I can. I say 'makers' rather than 'writers', because people automically think that 'new' means new writing. And in practice, I think new Irish writing often means just more Irish writing. Also, I'm uncomfortable with the word innovative. What does innovation mean? It comes back to making, making is innovating."

Young British artist Richard Billingham, known for his photographic and video work: "Painting is more demanding than photography. It's not even that enjoyable but it's a more intellectual activity. You're analysing the whole surface all the time, your mind is engaged ."

Coldplay's Chris Martin on his "No Logo" stance: "We get offered huge amounts of money routinely to have our songs used in advertisements, but we turn them all down. In fact, now we've asked that we don't even be informed of the offers anymore - just turn them down straight away. I know we could divert the money offered into worthwhile causes, but we'd be cheating the people who bought our records, wouldn't we?"

Director Rob Bowman offers a backhanded compliment to Irish supporting players in Reign of Fire: "It was easy to find very interesting faces in Ireland. In the supporting roles, I like finding interesting people who don't say much, but have a screen presence. Like in John Huston or John Ford films. Look at Ned Dennehy and David Kennedy: just because those guys don't say much, doesn't mean you don't notice them. Now in LA, typically people who look like that are homeless. Not so here."

Artist John Noel Smith who returned to live in Ireland after 22 years living and working in Berlin: "I went to Berlin for two years and stayed for 22 - a life sentence."

Sheryl Crow: "When I look into the future, I see the same person as I am now, because right now I feel like the same person I was when I was 20. I'm sure I'll basically be the same - not getting around as quickly, perhaps, and making music that is probably more sombre. Of course, I will completely have become a rap artist by that time, too, and probably wearing no clothes at all."

Jeffrey Eugenides: "I think it's important to say that I don't take reality and make it strange; I take things that are a bit strange and make them normal."

Leland Bardwell on the abortion referendum and the options open to unmarried women: "You're a killer, a thief or a liar. It's not great. Irish men have never really liked women."

Composer Luciano Berio: "Neo-classicism in Italy, and in a good part of Europe, was a kind of chastity belt to prevent the aggressions of music, of a density, of an expressive or expressionistic invasion of music."

Sean O'Reilly on the narrow perception of the North: "It's as if it's all Belfast. It's not. Belfast is as strange to me as it is to a southerner. Coming from Derry, with Donegal to my back, of course I'm Irish . . . I don't see myself as a Northern writer. I'm more interested in form and language, language being the medium I work in as an artist. And that medium has many registers - colloquial and philosophical."

Heather Juergensen, director, writer and star of the bi-curious comedy Kissing Jessica Stein: "There is a double standard in the culture. It is understood that the feminine dynamic is more touchy- feely. If a man were to have a love scene with another man, he might be frightened of being pegged as gay. But, also in life, men can't seem to explore their own sexuality without being classed as gay or straight. If you're a woman, you're allowed more flux."

Gerhard Markson, principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra: "I refused to deal with Bruckner's music for a long time in my life because it was too close to me. I come from a Catholic family, I was an organist myself, and it smelled too much of where I come from. I didn't care to deal with it. The older I get now [Markson is 54] the more I feel it's part of me."

Actress Rachel Griffiths: "Well, I think vanity gets in the way of good acting. Arnie [Schwarzenegger] was never a great actor, but every buttock shot took away a little of the expressive ability he did have. There was a guy who really couldn't afford buttock shots."

Quotes from interviews in 2002 by: Eileen Battersby, Brian Boyd, Donald Clarke, Tony Clayton-Lea, Kevin Courtney, Michael Dervan, Aidan Dunne, Michael Dwyer