I've hardly had an avant-garde career... If you're going to make a film, you have to try to make sure it comes out of a childlike passion, as if you're doing it for the first time.
The fact is that Hollywood, from as early as the sixties to the present time, has ghettoized cinema into the big industry, a marketing industry. In doing this, the audiences have lost touch with the aspects of film which were to be informative and ed...
Whenever I think of the high salaries we are paid as film actors, I think it is for the travel, the time away, and any trouble you get into through being well known. It's not for the acting, that's for sure.
It gets very tiring when you are filming and then taken to a room to do school work. I never get any rest time. It is either work or school. Once you are an adult, you get to take a nap in between shots.
Everyone talks about reality TV and that there are no roles left. That's false. Years ago, there were three networks. Now there are 20 cable networks and so many ways for films to be exhibited. It's an exciting time for actors, writers, directors, an...
When you're working with film, you can only shoot one angle at a time, and then everything has to stop, and you re-light it and shoot everything else from the opposite side, so it's really important that you stick exactly to what's written.
In theater, you're allowed to take your time and sit in a role for a month before you have to share it with anybody. In film and TV, you have to just kind of show up and be ready to do that, which, to me, is very strange and crazy.
In a film you only get two hours to do this big arc and so you have to pick and choose your moments carefully, but with television you get to take your time and just take it episode by episode and discover new things.
Comedy, when it works, is light on its feet and has the illusion of complete spontaneity: as if there is no film, no camera. You are standing there experiencing it all in real time. This illusion, I believe, is why so many people think comedy is easy...
Because you're telling a story, and I'm sure people fifty years ago would tell the same story differently if they were telling it to you today. Because the time is different. The film is the work of today's audience.
I loved to watch cartoons and even made little stop-motion films in the backyard. At the time, I never really thought that it was something you could do for a living; it never actually hit me that people do that sort of thing or I would be capable of...
My idea is just to do something different each time; the next thing I do has to be completely different to the thing I've done before - that's what I try and do, because you know, I'm an actor, not a film star.
A lot of my time is spent watching films and reading scripts. And it can be all-consuming. And it's obviously something I'm fortunate that is both my work and my hobby. It's what I would naturally be doing anyway.
I was asked to go to Cannes to present Amores Perros. And little did I know that this film would be huge. I saw it for the first time in Cannes, and it was the first time I'd seen myself on such a big screen. And it had a huge impact on me - it was t...
I can't frankly see much difference in the film industry at all. The only difference might be that they don't take as much time as they used to. For example, they'll do in one day what we used to take a week to do.
Books provide context and allow you to think about things over time. Film is like writing haiku; there is an immense amount of pleasure in paring down and paring down. But it isn't the same.
I think a lot of the time these days people are so concerned about having the right camera and the right film and the right lenses and all the special effects that go along with it, even the computer, that they're missing the key element.
I did theatre a lot when I was a kid. Then I went to acting school in New York. I did a lot of behind the scenes in college. I wanted to learn while I had the time. I studied theatre and film in different capacities.
If you wait until the right time to have a child you'll die childless, and I think film making is very much the same thing. You just have to take the plunge and just start shooting something even if it's bad.
Having done film, TV and theatre, the nicest final bit of the jigsaw is to do live comedy, because you can talk to the audience. It feels really natural to be able to laugh with them, but at the same time still be within the framework of a play.
When I started work with LucasArts Computer Division back in 1984, I went to the Palace of Fine Arts and saw the Festival of Animation for the first time. I loved the diverse collection of animated films the festival held.
