I think I'm an actor because I have very strong imagination and empathy. I never studied acting, but those two qualities are exactly the qualities that make for an activist.
As an actor, you can certainly, at any moment and at any time, discover 400 people who think you're stupid, fat and ugly.
T.V.'s weird because it's both the greatest gig as an actor potentially because it can be all this work for all this time, but there are so many question marks at every stage of the process.
In the editing room, 20 percent of the time you're using stuff from before the actor knew the camera was rolling or you're taking a line from somewhere else and putting it in his mouth.
No one gave a crap that I was the kid from 'Free Willy'. You're not in some wispy fantasyland where everyone's telling you 'yes' all the time, which happens a lot to actors.
I'm certainly not one of those actors who remain in a dark place the entire time in order to be doing the scene. I sort of come in and out of it. It can be to the detriment of my performance sometimes!
I usually don't say anything to the actors. It works better for me because when they come to the set, they are at the same time scared and excited because they are not well aware of what will happen.
Only one of us would usually sing lead. Which most of the time was, Mickey or Dave. They thought it was perfectly a natural routine, because Mickey and Dave saw themselves as TV actors.
I feel like people who come out to Los Angeles hoping to be an actor give up too easily, and/or they don't put in the amount of time that it really does take.
Sometimes you go into a film and you have no time to prepare and have to compress the details into a few days and then rely on the instinct and what happens when you're in a scene with other actors and that chemistry or not.
I'm not so bothered by the audition process anymore; in fact, I use it. It's a time for the actor to actually get to the know the director and the producers a little bit, too.
Being an actor, imitating to the point of inhabiting the lives of others, may simply be a way of continuing to do what I learned to do as a boy - to travel, mentally and physically.
The hardest thing is for me to let the work go and let myself just live. Every actor is different; they each have their own strengths and weaknesses; trust and ease are mine.
I have no desire to direct at all. I know how much pressure it is, and, trust me, it's so much easier and so much more fun to be an actor.
As an actor, I've always found that my job is not to judge the content in which I've agreed to perform in. What I try to do is just find the truth in every moment that they've written.
Cavendish Look-A-Like Actor: This is a violation of the ruddy Incarceration Act! I will not be subjugated to criminal abuse!
Leo Bloom: Actors are not animals! They're human beings! Max Bialystock: They are? Have you ever eaten with one?
If you find yourself desperate for money, you sometimes do whatever, but on the other hand, if you really want to be known as a certain type of actor, then you have to restrain yourself.
Sony could have $50 million and a sound stage and A-list actors and never make the same film. The constraints on this film became the essence of this film, became the power of this film.
I didn't become an actor to have power, but it just happens that I have it and so I have a lot of opportunities.
How many times can you play an action character, or a quirky romantic? Every actor has to find his own way to make each character unique.
