I could have easily been a statistic. Growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., it was easy - a little too easy - to get into trouble. Surrounded by poor schools, lack of resources, high unemployment rates, poverty, gangs and more, I watched as many of my peers ...
Sometimes I get a little confused because with dancing I can express my emotions with my body. With acting you have to do it with your face and your expressions, and then with animated shows you have to use your voice and use your inflections. So it'...
It's hard with ballet because your aesthetic really is important. It's different from acting and from film. Nobody wants to watch somebody who is sickly thin. And it's interesting because I have danced with people who are ill, have eating disorders, ...
I did theatre when I was nine, I think. Nine and ten, and that was just the beginning of my whole involvement in acting, my whole interest. I don't really remember it that well. But it was really fun. I mean, it was exciting just to be on stage in fr...
I like to just make things... If I have the TV on, I'm not just going to sit there. I want to do something with my hands; I've always got a project. Or I get a small group of people over, and I say, 'Let's make these things today.'
Did you happen to catch the film I did between 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Kong?' It was a nice little Jennifer Garner comedy, '13 Going on 30,' and I play her boss. In my big scene, I get to moonwalk - pretty well, I thought - to Michael Jackson.
I've been told that some guy wrote something like, 'Andy Serkis does everything, animators do nothing.' Of course I never in a million years said that, wouldn't ever say that. It's not within my understanding of filmmaking to ever say anything like t...
In 'Tintin,' it's like a live-action role. You're living and breathing and making decisions for that character from page 1 to page 120, the whole emotional arc. In an animated movie, it's a committee decision. There are 50 people creating that charac...
My very, very first moment on set on 'Lord of the Rings' in 2000 was me in a lycra suit, six and a half thousand feet up on a mountain in New Zealand, standing in front of 250 crew who were all wondering what I was doing - myself included.
My natural bent is to have an overabundance of energy, and motion-capture essentializes your every breath, your every move. Seeing yourself through that mask, you realize how far you can pull back and make the performance even more powerful.
Your mind can't always tell the difference between pretend and reality if you pretend too long; or if you go too deep and really believe in what you're doing. If you're going to be that kind of actor and go way out there, it's really important to tak...
The thing that drives me nuts is when I get stopped in a crowded place, and they look at me and say, 'Who are you?' I don't know if they're friends or fans, and I say, 'I'm Annabella Sciorra', and they say, 'What have you done?' So I start to give th...
If I do three interviews in a day, I can be exhausted, because the process of hearing everyone requires that I empty out myself. While I'm listening, my own judgments and prejudices certainly come up. But I know I won't get anything unless I get thos...
I think a lot of L.A. is something like USC - this incredible white culture living in the midst of color, and no obvious reaction to it at all. I mean, they have guards at the gate at USC - guards at the gate of a major university! And the guards cha...
I think professionally I admire people and the way they've handled their careers and being in the media. But the people that I used to inspire me and keep me going were my peers in Toronto - I would see the same girls going to audition after audition...
Degree actually came to me and asked me if I wanted to be a part of their campaign, and I thought it was just really exciting and important, obviously to my fans, and growing up I had tons of OMG moments. I get to share my own moments through video b...
I've done a lot of dramas, and I've done a lot of serious stuff - some really heavy stuff... which I loved, but I wanted to do something light and airy. I think the challenge for an actor is always to see which parts of you you can explore and go hav...
My parents both had Oxford degrees, they read important books, spoke foreign languages, drank real coffee and went to museums for pleasure. People like that don't have fat kids: they were cut out to be winners and winners don't have children who are ...
I give talks to theater arts departments, and I don't know what I'll say. I don't plan a thing. It's just the energy of these young people. They're the next generation, and what they have is very representative of how I felt when I was 19 or 20 or so...
Anxiety is a kind of fuel that activates the fight-or-flight part of the brain in me. It makes sure that a velociraptor isn't around the corner and that you do as much as you possibly can to survive. Because Hollywood has a lot in common with 'Jurass...
To answer the question, though: I didn't always want to direct. I just liked the idea of it. If a friend was making a short and needed someone who knew screen direction, I would jump in. It would be horrible, but it led to a short, then another, and ...
