Art & Creativity Quote by Michael Berryman

There is a quiet, hard-earned gratitude in Berryman's line, and it lands because it reveals what most audiences forget: for some actors, a review isn't just a consumer guide, it's a referendum on whether the industry will let them keep working. Berryman, long typed as the unforgettable "face" in cult cinema, is speaking from a career spent under the microscope of subject matter, taste, and bodily difference. When he praises Ebert and Roper for separating "the subject matter and the art form", he's pointing at a trap critics often fall into: moral verdicts dressed up as aesthetic judgment.

The specificity of "At the Movies" matters. That show was mainstream arbitration, a Midwestern-sounding stamp of legitimacy beamed into living rooms. A "thumbs up" wasn't just approval; it was permission for people to enjoy something without apologizing for it. Berryman's slightly halting, conversational phrasing ("it was, nice", "kind of pleased") reads less like PR polish and more like someone replaying a moment where the gatekeepers didn't sneer.

The subtext is a critique of critics without starting a fight. "As far as reviewers go" is a small sting: honesty is treated as exceptional, not baseline. He isn't asking for praise; he's asking for fair seeing. In that sense, it's an actor's version of a larger cultural plea: judge the work as work, not as a proxy battle over what you think the work implies about the people who made it - or the people who might relate to it.