Skip to main content

Daily Inspiration Quote by Thomas Lennon

"That's the other thing about working on movies, the commitment is years. That's one thing that's so frustrating about the process is that it goes on and on and on for years"

About this Quote

The sneakiest punch in Thomas Lennon’s line is how casual it sounds while describing a deeply unnatural way to live. “Working on movies” gets framed as an endurance sport: not the romantic, glittery “set life” people imagine, but a commitment measured in years, with no clean edges. Lennon repeats “years” and then stacks “on and on and on,” a comic escalation that doubles as a small act of self-defense. If you can make it rhythmic, you can survive it.

As an actor-comedian who’s spent decades inside studio machinery, Lennon isn’t just venting; he’s pointing at the mismatch between cultural fantasy and industrial reality. Movies are sold as discrete events: a trailer, a premiere, a weekend box office score. The labor behind them is the opposite - a slow, sprawling sequence of rewrites, scheduling crises, financing delays, reshoots, test screenings, notes, marketing, and waiting. His frustration is less about hard work than about time losing its shape. A project doesn’t end; it metastasizes. You can’t “clock out” of a film that keeps reappearing in new forms.

There’s also a quiet trade-off embedded here: saying yes to a movie is saying no to a lot of other lives you might have lived during those years. Lennon’s repetition exposes the hidden cost of creative ambition in a corporate art form - the way the process demands loyalty long after the initial excitement is gone, turning commitment into attrition.

Quote Details

TopicMovie
SourceHelp us find the source
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Lennon, Thomas. (2026, January 15). That's the other thing about working on movies, the commitment is years. That's one thing that's so frustrating about the process is that it goes on and on and on for years. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/thats-the-other-thing-about-working-on-movies-the-169132/

Chicago Style
Lennon, Thomas. "That's the other thing about working on movies, the commitment is years. That's one thing that's so frustrating about the process is that it goes on and on and on for years." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/thats-the-other-thing-about-working-on-movies-the-169132/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"That's the other thing about working on movies, the commitment is years. That's one thing that's so frustrating about the process is that it goes on and on and on for years." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/thats-the-other-thing-about-working-on-movies-the-169132/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Thomas Add to List
The other thing about working on movies is the years
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

USA Flag

Thomas Lennon (born August 9, 1970) is a Actor from USA.

16 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes