Argo (2012)

Alan Arkin: Lester Siegel

Photos 

Quotes 

• LA Times Reporter : What does the title refer to?

  Lester Siegel : The Argo. You know, it's the thing.

  LA Times Reporter : Like Jason and the Golden Fleece, or what?

  Lester Siegel : 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.

  Lester Siegel : No.

  LA Times Reporter : What does Argo mean?

  Lester Siegel : I don't know.

  LA Times Reporter : You don't know?

  Lester Siegel : It means "Argo fuck yourself."

• Lester Siegel : If I'm doing a fake movie, it's gonna be a fake hit.

• Lester Siegel : Argo fuck yourself.

• Lester Siegel : 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.

  Tony Mendez : Past about a hundred militia at the airport. That's right.

  Lester Siegel : Right...

  [sighs] 

  Lester Siegel : Look, I, I gotta tell ya. W-We did suicide missions in the army that had better odds than this.

• Max Klein : You want me to be honest with you, Les?

  Lester Siegel : No, I would like you to bullshit me, Max.

  Max Klein : 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.

  Lester Siegel : Thank you. Very respectful.

  Max Klein : 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.

  Lester Siegel : 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 shit 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 fuck yourself! With all due respect.

• Max Klein : You want me to be honest with you, Les?

  Lester Siegel : No, I would like you to bullshit me, Max.

• Tony Mendez : You really know Warren Beatty?

  Lester Siegel : Yes, I do. I took a leak next to him once at the Golden Globes.

• Lester Siegel , Tony Mendez : [on the phone]  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?

  Tony Mendez : No, what?

  Lester Siegel : 'Argo fuck yourself!'

• Nina : Lester?

  Lester Siegel : Nina, you look fabulous. You're doing the reading?

  Nina : I'm playing Circe, the Galactic Witch.

  Lester Siegel : Great. I'll call you.

  [walking away from Nina, talks to John] 

  Lester Siegel : Keep that fucking space witch away from me.

  John Chambers : You know her?

  Lester Siegel : I was married to her.

• Tony Mendez : We got an office, we got business cards, we 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 Chambers : I did a movie with Rock Hudson one time. If you wanna sell a lie...

  Lester Siegel : You get the press to sell it for you.

• Lester Siegel : We made history today. "History starts out as farce and ends up as tragedy."

  John Chambers : Quote's the other way around.

  Lester Siegel : Yeah? Who said it?

  John Chambers : Marx.

  Lester Siegel : Groucho said that?

• Tony Mendez : [reading a script]  Fade in on a starship landing. An exotic, Middle Eastern vibe. Women gather, offering ecstatic libations to the sky gods. Argo. A science-fantasy adventure.

  Lester Siegel : [reluctantly]  It's in turnaround. It's dog shit.

  Tony Mendez : It's a space movie in the Middle East. Does it matter?

  John Chambers : [to Lester]  Can we get the option?

  Tony Mendez : [confused]  Why do we need the option?

  Lester Siegel : You're worried about the Ayatollah? Try the WGA.

• John Chambers : [watching the Iranian demonstrators on TV]  You ever think, Lester, how this is all for the cameras?

  Lester Siegel : Well, they're getting the ratings, I'll say that for them.

• Tony Mendez : You got any kids, Lester?

  Lester Siegel : Yeah, I have two daughters.

  Tony Mendez : See 'em much?

  Lester Siegel : I talk to 'em once a year... maybe.

  Tony Mendez : Why's that?

  Lester Siegel : [shrugs]  I was a terrible father... The bullshit business... it's like coal mining. Y-Y-Ya come home to your wife and kids, ya can't, ya can't wash it off.

• Lester Siegel : It's got horses in it, it's a western.

• Lester Siegel : [Tony finds the "Argo" screenplay]  It's a turnaround. It's dog shit.

  Tony Mendez : It's a space movie in the Middle East. Does it matter?

• Lester Siegel : Hi, I only got a couple of minutes, I'm getting a lifetime achievement award.

  John Chambers : Mazel tov, Lester.

  Lester Siegel : I'd rather stay home and count the wrinkles on my dog's balls.

• Lester Siegel : Bad news, bad news. Even when it's good news, it's bad news. John Wayne in the ground 6 months and this is what is left of America.

• John Chambers : It doesn't matter - it's a fake movie.

  Lester Siegel : If I'm doin' a fake movie, it's gonna be a fake hit.

• Lester Siegel : [when he and Chambers need to get to the Argo office to cover for the escape and a guard at a studio is not letting them through because a scene is being shot]  You know what, we're going through. Call my agent, we're going to be in the picture.

  [walks past the guard] 

• Lester Siegel : We're gonna need a script.

• John Chambers : I did a movie with Rock Hudson one time. If you wanna sell a lie...

  Lester Siegel : Get the press to sell it for you.