Argo (2012 film) Quotes

Argo (2012 film) is a TV show that debuted in 1970 . Argo ended its run in 1970.

It features Ben Affleck, and George Clooney; Grant Heslov as producer, Alexandre Desplat in charge of musical score, and Rodrigo Prieto as head of cinematography.

Argo (2012 film) is recorded in English and originally aired in United States. Each episode of Argo (2012 film) is 120 minutes long. Argo (2012 film) is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

The cast includes: Alan Arkin as Lester Siegel, Richard Kind as Max Klein, John Goodman as John Chambers, Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez, Bryan Cranston as Jack O'Donnell, Scoot McNairy as Joe Stafford, Adrienne Barbeau as Nina, Rory Cochrane as Lee Schatz, Kyle Chandler as Hamilton Jordan, Page Leong as Ken Taylor, Yuri Sardarov as Rossi, Tate Donovan as Bob Anders, Clea DuVall as Cora Lijek, Christopher Denham as Mark Lijek, Sheila Vand as Sahar, Bob Gunton as Cyrus Vance, Kerry Bishé as Kathy Stafford, Željko Ivanek as Robert Pender, Barry Livingston as David Marmor, Titus Welliver as Bates, Keith Szarabajka as Adam Engell, and Scoot McNairy as "Stafford".

Argo (2012 film) Quotes

Bryan Cranston as Jack O'Donnell

• (Bryan Cranston) "The whole country is watching you, they just don't know it"

• (Bryan Cranston) "This is the best bad idea we have, sir. By far."

• (Bryan Cranston) "I'm required to remind you that if you're detained, the Agency will not claim you."
• (Ben Affleck) "They barely claim me as it is."

• (Bryan Cranston) "Carter's s***ting enough bricks to build the pyramids."

• (Bryan Cranston) "I am not going to leave him at the airport with six people and his dick in his hand. Tell the Director to call the White House. Do your f***ing job."

• (Bryan Cranston) "It's a Spy Agency. Find them."

• (Bryan Cranston) "Carter said you were a great American."
• (Ben Affleck) "A great American what?"
• (Bryan Cranston) "He didn't say."

John Goodman as John Chambers

• (John Goodman) "Let's see. Well, this one's got an M.A. in English. She should be your screenwriter. Sometimes they go along on scouts because they want the free meals -- Here's your director."
• (Ben Affleck) "Can you teach somebody to be a director in a day?"
• (John Goodman) "You can teach a rhesus monkey to be a director in a day."

• (Unnamed) "Hello, can I speak to Mr Hawkins, please?"
• (John Goodman) "I'm sorry he's out of the country on a Location Scout, can I take a message?"

• (John Goodman) "You ever think, Lester, how this is all for the cameras?"
• (Alan Arkin) "Well, they're getting the ratings, I'll say that for them."

• (John Goodman) "If you're gonna do a $20 million "Star Wars" rip-off, you need somebody who's a somebody to put their name on it. Somebody respectable. With credits. Who you can trust with classified information. Who'll produce a fake movie. For free."

• (John Goodman) "Look, if you're gonna this, you gotta do it. The Kho-maniacs are Froot Loops, but they got cousins who sell prayer rugs and eight-tracks on La Brea. You can't build cover stories around a movie that doesn't exist. You need a script, you need a producer."
• (Ben Affleck) "Make me a producer."
• (John Goodman) "No. You're an associate producer, at best."

• (John Goodman) "Target audience will hate it."
• (Ben Affleck) "Who's the target audience?"
• (John Goodman) "People with eyes."

• (John Goodman) "So you want to come to Hollywood, act like a big shot --"
• (Ben Affleck) "Yeah."
• (John Goodman) "-- without actually doing anything?"
• (Ben Affleck) "No."
• (John Goodman) "You'll fit right in."

• (John Goodman) "Talk to me."
• (Ben Affleck) "It's an exfil."
• (John Goodman) "From where?"
• (Ben Affleck) "The worst place you can think of."
• (John Goodman) "Universal City."
• (John Goodman) "How are you going to get into the embassy?"
• (Ben Affleck) "They're not in the embassy. During the takeover, six people escaped. They're hiding out in Tehran. That's who I'm gonna go get."

Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez

• (Unnamed) "I'm sorry I can't find your ticket."
• (Ben Affleck) "Thank you. Could you check again?"

• (Ben Affleck) "Sir, exfils are like abortions. You don't wanna need one. But when you do, you don't do it yourself."

• (Ben Affleck) "Shoot him, he's an American spy."

• (Ben Affleck) "Sir, do you have this newspaper in front of you? Would you mind taking a look at it? What's in this picture?"
• (Željko Ivanek) "Tehran."
• (Ben Affleck) "Right. What's on the ground?"
• (Željko Ivanek) "Snow."
• (Ben Affleck) "Right. So what crops are the do-gooders inspecting under Frosty?"

• (Ben Affleck) "We've got an office, we've got business cards, we've got a poster. If I'm the Revolutionary Guard, that's nothing we couldn't have made at home. Six people's lives depend on this. It's not enough. If we're gonna fool these people, it has to be big. And it has to have something that says it's authentic."
• (John Goodman) "I did a movie with Rock Hudson one time. If you wanna sell a lie --"
• (Alan Arkin) "You get the press to sell it for you."

• (Ben Affleck) "We are responsible for these people."
• (Bryan Cranston) "What we are is required to follow orders."

• (Ben Affleck) "You really know Warren Beatty?"
• (Alan Arkin) "Yes, I do. I took a leak next to him once at the Golden Globes."

• (Ben Affleck) "You. Where was your passport issued?"
• (Tate Donovan) "Vancouver."
• (Ben Affleck) "Where were you born?"
• (Tate Donovan) "Toronto."
• (Ben Affleck) ""Torono". Canadians don't pronounce the "t"."
• (Rory Cochrane) "Some Komiteh guard is actually gonna know that?"
• (Ben Affleck) "If you're detained for questioning, they will bring in someone who knows that, yes."

• (Ben Affleck) "I need another week, Jack."
• (Bryan Cranston) "You don't have it."

• (Ben Affleck) ""The Minister of Culture and Guidance has approved your location scout. He will send his representative to meet you and your crew at the Khayyam entrance to the Grand Bazaar tomorrow at 3 p.m.""
• (Bryan Cranston) "They called your bluff."
• (Ben Affleck) "Maybe they're cooperating."
• (Bryan Cranston) "Absolutely not. Seven Americans walking the bazaar is asking for a riot. It's the hive."
• (Ben Affleck) "Seven Canadians, Jack."
• (Bryan Cranston) "Never give them multiple shots at a cover. Are they even ready?"
• (Ben Affleck) "They're getting there."
• (Bryan Cranston) "There's no prize for most improved."
• (Ben Affleck) "I don't have a choice. We say no, they show up at the residence and drag everyone out at gunpoint. How well do you think their covers are gonna hold up while they're getting their fingernails pulled out?"

• (Ben Affleck) "I need you to help me make a fake movie."
• (John Goodman) "You came to the right place."

• (Ben Affleck) "I'm asking you to trust me."
• (Scoot McNairy) "I don't trust you."

• (Ben Affleck) "Okay, you know those science fiction movies? Star Trek, Star Wars. They need an exotic location to shoot. Moonscape, Mars, desert, you know. Now, imagine this: they're a Canadian film crew on a location scout for a science fiction movie. We put it out there; the Canadian producers put out there; that we're looking at Egypt, Istanbul. Then we go to the consulate and say "Hey, we wanna look at Iran, too." I fly into Tehran, we all fly out together as a film crew. Done."
• (Barry Livingston) "Flamboyant cover identities should be avoided, as it increases operational visibility."
• (Ben Affleck) "This is a lot more plausible than foreigners who wanna go be teachers in Iran."
• (Titus Welliver) "You wanna blend in with the population, you don't look like a rodeo clown."
• (Keith Szarabajka) "Just gonna wake up tomorrow morning and be in the movie business? We already have credentials for the teachers."
• (Ben Affleck) "No, sir, we have a contact in L.A."
• (Bryan Cranston) "Chambers."
• (Ben Affleck) "John Chambers. He's a Hollywood prosthetics guy. He's got an Oscar, he did "Planet of the Apes", and he's done a bunch of contract work for us in the past. I go see him, he sets us up. One, two days, make it look real."

• (Ben Affleck) "So I'm sitting in Jerry's this morning, having breakfast, a waitress comes over to me, she's waving a newspaper and she says, 'You see what those Canadians pulled off? Why can't we do something like that?' And I said to her, you know what I said?"
• (Ben Affleck) "No, what?"
• (Alan Arkin) "'Argo f*** yourself.'"

• (Ben Affleck) "Mike, if I were to say you were looking through the wrong end of that viewfinder, would I be right?"
• (Rory Cochrane) "Yup."

• (Ben Affleck) "If we're caught, you and Pat go on trial for harboring the enemy. You know that, right?"
• (Page Leong) "Pat and I have discussed it. It's the risk we took."

• (Ben Affleck) "There are only bad options. It's about finding the best one."
• (C.I.A Director Stansfield Turner) "You don't have a better bad idea than this?"

• (Ben Affleck) "You got any kids, Lester?"
• (Alan Arkin) "Yeah, I have two daughters."
• (Ben Affleck) "You see them much?"
• (Alan Arkin) "I talk to them once a year, maybe."
• (Ben Affleck) "Why's that?"
• (Alan Arkin) "I was a terrible father."
• (Alan Arkin) "The bulls*** business, it's like coal-mining; you come home to your wife and kids, you can't wash it off."

• (Ben Affleck) "The only way this works is if you believe that you're these people so much that you dream like them."

• (Ben Affleck) "So you know."
• (Page Leong) "ExtAff wants you to burn the passports before you leave. If we tell them now, they'll panic. I think it's best if you just don't show. It was always a f***ed mission. You came closer than anybody else."

Alan Arkin as Lester Siegel

• (Alan Arkin) "We made history today. "History starts out as farce and ends up as tragedy.""
• (John Goodman) "Quote's the other way around."
• (Alan Arkin) "Yeah? Who said it?"
• (John Goodman) "Marx."
• (Alan Arkin) "Groucho said that?"

• (Alan Arkin) "Hi, I only got a couple of minutes, I'm getting a lifetime achievement award."
• (John Goodman) "Mazel tov, Lester."
• (Alan Arkin) "I'd rather stay home and count the wrinkles on my dog's balls."

• (Alan Arkin) "We're gonna need a script."

• (Alan Arkin) "If I'm doing a fake movie, it's gonna be a fake hit."

• (Alan Arkin) "Argo f*** yourself."

• (Alan Arkin) "Okay, you got 6 people hiding out in a town of what, 4 million people, all of whom chant "death to America" all the livelong day. You want to set up a movie in a week. You want to lie to Hollywood, a town where everybody lies for a living. Then you're gonna sneak 007 over here into a country that wants CIA blood on their breakfast cereal, and you're gonna walk the Brady Bunch out of the most watched city in the world."
• (Ben Affleck) "Past about a hundred militia at the airport. That's right."
• (Alan Arkin) "Right. Look, I gotta tell you. We did suicide missions in the army that had better odds than this."

• (Alan Arkin) "You're worried about the Ayatollah? Try the WGA."

• (Alan Arkin) "It's a turnaround. It's dog s***."
• (Ben Affleck) "It's a space movie in the Middle East. Does it matter?"

• (LA Times Reporter) "What does the title refer to?"
• (Alan Arkin) "The Argo. You know, it's the thing."
• (LA Times Reporter) "Like Jason and the Golden Fleece, or what?"
• (Alan Arkin) "No, no. It's the ship. It's the spaceship. It goes everywhere. It goes all throughout space."
• (LA Times Reporter) "So, it's Argonaut."
• (Alan Arkin) "No."
• (LA Times Reporter) "What does Argo mean?"
• (Alan Arkin) "I don't know."
• (LA Times Reporter) "You don't know?"
• (Alan Arkin) "It means "Argo f*** yourself.""

Bob Gunton as Cyrus Vance

(We don't have any quotes for this character)

Scoot McNairy as "Stafford"

• (Scoot McNairy) "Of course I can speak Farsi. I wish to make a film in Iran."

• (Scoot McNairy) "That man out there has got bad cards, and he is going to lose. And if he loses, it's our lives."
• (Kerry Bishé) "And his life, too."

• (Scoot McNairy) "Kevin, give me the storyboards."
• (Scoot McNairy) "These are the drawings that show what we will film for the movie. Alien villains have taken over the hero's planet. They fight for their families and take back the city. The villains know he is the chosen one so they kidnap his son in the Spice Market. So he and his wife storm the castle. The people -- hold that -- the people are instructed to join him. They are farmers but they learn to fight. Voom. Neow. Pew-pew. They shoot weapons at their enemies. Kaboom. And the King of the Aliens is destroyed when the people find their courage."

Christopher Denham as Mark Lijek

• (Christopher Denham) "I haven't been this nervous since our wedding."
• (Clea DuVall) "Only this isn't a huge mistake, hopefully."

Sheila Vand as Sahar

• (Sheila Vand) "This is the Persian Empire known today as Iran. For 2,500 years, this land was ruled by a series of kings, known as shahs. In 1950, the people of Iran elected Mohammad Mossadeqh, a secular democrat, as Prime Minister. He nationalized British and U.S. petroleum holdings, returning Iran's oil to it's people. But in 1953, the U.S. and Great Britain engineered a coup d'etat that deposed Mossadeqh and installed Reza Pahlavi as shah. The young Shah was known for opulence and excess. His wife was rumored to bathe in milk while the shah had his lunches flown in by Concorde from Paris. The people starved. The shah kept power through his ruthless internal police; the SAVAK. An era of torture and fear began. He then began a campaign to westernize Iran, enraging a mostly traditional Shiite population. In 1979, the people of Iran overthrew the shah. The exiled cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, returned to rule Iran. It descended into score-settling, death squads and chaos. Dying of cancer, the shah was given asylum in the U.S. The Iranian people took to the streets outside the U.S. Embassy, demanding the shah be returned, tried and hanged."

Tate Donovan as Bob Anders

• (Tate Donovan) "We can't hold up under that. We don't know what the hell movie people do."
• (Ben Affleck) "That's why I'm here. I'm gonna help you. I'll be with you the whole way. This is what I do."
• (Clea DuVall) "Have you gotten people out this way before?"
• (Ben Affleck) "This will be a first."

Page Leong as Ken Taylor

• (Page Leong) "I was expecting more of a G-man look."
• (Ben Affleck) "I think you're thinking of the FBI, sir."

Adrienne Barbeau as Nina

• (Adrienne Barbeau) "Lester?"
• (Alan Arkin) "Nina, you look fabulous. You're doing the reading?"
• (Adrienne Barbeau) "I'm playing Serksi, the Galactic Witch."
• (Alan Arkin) "Great. I'll call you."
• (Alan Arkin) "Keep that f***ing space witch away from me."
• (John Goodman) "You know her?"
• (Alan Arkin) "I was married to her."

Richard Kind as Max Klein

• (Richard Kind) "You want me to be honest with you, Les?"
• (Alan Arkin) "No, I would like you to bulls*** me, Max."
• (Richard Kind) "All right. I enjoyed your films, the early ones. I took this meeting out of respect, because I wanted to say no to your face."
• (Alan Arkin) "Thank you. Very respectful."
• (Richard Kind) "You're finished, Lester. Get your cataracts fixed, read the trades. MGM just capitalized for six new films, they're screaming for sci-fi. They're offering me four times what you guys are offering me."
• (Alan Arkin) "Well, what can I say? Congratulations. But see, if kind of worries me what you said, let me tell you why. A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in Trader Vic's, I was enjoying a mai tai, when my pal Warren Beatty comes in. He wishes me well, and we have a little chat. Seems he was attached to star in 'Zulu Empire,' which was gonna anchor that MGM slate, but Warren confided in me that the picture's gone over budget because the Zulu extras want to unionize. They may be cannibals, but they want health and dental. Which means the movie's kaput, so the MGM deal ain't gonna happen, and your script ain't worth the buffalo s*** on a nickel. So the way it looks to me, through the cataracts I grant you, is that you can either sign here and take ten thousand dollars for your toilet paper script, or you can go f*** yourself. With all due respect."

• (Richard Kind) "You want me to be honest with you, Les?"
• (Alan Arkin) "No, I would like you to bulls*** me, Max."

Yuri Sardarov as Rossi

• (Lamont) "Call the Times, nail it to the god**** door. CIA are the good guys."
• (Yuri Sardarov) "The Canadians are the good guys."
• (Lamont) "Yeah, we're not greedy. Them, too."
• (Yuri Sardarov) "Only. Canada takes the credit, or they retaliate against the hostages. Great Satan wasn't involved. No CIA."
• (Lamont) "Is that right, Jack?"
• (Bryan Cranston) "Involved in what? We were as surprised as anybody. Thank you, Canada."

Kyle Chandler as Hamilton Jordan

• (Landon Butler) "They're claiming the embassy was a den of espionage."
• (Kyle Chandler) "We wish it was a f***in' den of espionage. CI's got three people over there, they don't see a revolution coming? Call it something other than intelligence."

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