Growing up, Paul Newman seemed like the ultimate manly actor. And then, I got to work with him and we became friends, so that was nice.
Normally, an actress has to work to bring out her male side. In our case, the dynamic is reversed. The actor playing her modelled himself on Sharon Stone.
I got better as an actor, and still I'm getting better. That's only been possible because there's always been work.
Throughout Ireland, there's a brilliant community of filmmakers and actors, and I guess there was always a lure to do some work in the place where I come from.
Fortunately and unfortunately, people don't see me as a character actor. They see me as a leading man or nothing, which makes it really hard to get work.
Next year, if no one gives me any work, that's fine. I'm not going to do well anyway. I'm not an actor, I'm just exploiting this industry.
Don't pretend to know everything. I've been blessed to work with a lot of veteran actors, and I soak up lessons from them like a sponge.
Film work can be very interesting, but it also can be awfully boring because who creates the film? The actors? No. It is the director. It's his piece of work.
I don't really like to work with actors that work a lot and are very well established already. In a way, I like to nurture talent and have it burst on the scene.
The minute you start making calculations about what people will think of you as a person based on your work as an actor, you're on the road to becoming a bad one.
For me, making the show work was getting belly laughs - like most variety artists. But the straight actor believes you fix your performance in rehearsal and that's it.
For an actor working in television or film, I think it's important to understand how the medium works - how the camera and lenses work and how the sound and the editing works.
I don't like waiting around for work, and sometimes as an actor you're forced into that position, so that's sort of how I got into writing, producing and directing.
I'm constantly intimidated by Shakespeare's work. Trying to decipher what he's saying and holding on to that thought - not just as an actor, but as a human being - is a rigour.
You have actors who begin at a certain young age and there's very little change in their technique and the depth of their performances; they're the same 30 years later.
Basically I am just another actor who loves his work and this thing about age only exists in the media.
I've always had, like, from the age of about 11, I've had such an intolerance for bad behaviour of actors that I don't think I was ever going to be that person.
From a very young age, I wanted to be an actor, but I lived in a very small town in Florida where there weren't any opportunities for that.
I was trained as an actor and taught to believe at a very young age that I could be anything and do anything, and then you find yourself painted into a corner by your own image or persona.
When I was growing up, you'd read about actors, and they'd never tell you their age and how much they made a year as part of their definition.
I'm a big fan of Daniel Day-Lewis. He's a marvelous actor. He stands alone, I think.
