Wealth & Money Quote by Steve Guttenberg

There is something refreshingly unvarnished about Steve Guttenberg admitting he loves "the fame and the money and the power" and then immediately stapling it to discipline: "You have to keep working to have that". The first sentence is the kind of appetite celebrities are trained to camouflage behind talk of "craft" and "gratitude". Guttenberg skips the camouflage. The second sentence is the tell: this isn't just bragging, it's a survival note from someone who understands how quickly Hollywood devalues yesterday's brand.

The intent reads less like a confession than a correction of a common fantasy. Fame isn’t a trophy you place on a shelf; it’s a lease you renew. By linking pleasure (love) to labor (keep working), he frames celebrity as a job with performance reviews, not a coronation. "Power" here isn’t statecraft; it’s the soft power of getting calls returned, getting projects greenlit, getting to say no. And it’s explicitly conditional.

Context matters: Guttenberg is an emblem of 1980s mainstream stardom, a period when a likeable lead could become a household name fast and then watch the culture move on just as fast. The subtext is anxiety dressed as ambition. He’s acknowledging the bargain at the heart of entertainment: the perks are real, but they’re rented, and the rent is constant motion.