Daily Inspiration Quote by Gig Young

Thirty years in Hollywood, fifty-five credits, and Gig Young’s verdict lands like a dry martini thrown in your face: almost none of it counted. The line isn’t modesty; it’s an actor refusing the comforting myth that a long career equals a meaningful one. By separating “any good” from “any good for me,” Young draws a sharp distinction between public success and private damage. A film can be “good” on paper - prestige, box office, rave reviews - and still be corrosive to the person making it: the wrong role, the wrong set of compromises, the wrong habits reinforced.

The arithmetic is the point. “Not more than five” sounds precise, but it’s really an emotional statistic, a blunt way of measuring regret. Young was a gifted character actor, often deployed as polished authority or suave antagonist, the kind of performer who keeps a story running while the stars collect the mythology. That position breeds a particular bitterness: always working, rarely owning the narrative of your own work.

The quote also reads like a quiet indictment of the studio-era machine and its hangover in the 60s and 70s: relentless output, typecasting, the expectation that professionals don’t complain. Young’s later life - marked by alcoholism and a widely reported personal collapse - haunts the phrase “for me.” It turns career retrospection into a warning label: productivity can look like purpose until you tally what it cost you.