I had read the novel and I had heard David Lean was going to direct it - and it came as a surprise to me because American actors, if given the chance, can do style as well as anybody and speak as well as anybody.
University was a chance to people-watch and to mix with people from all various walks of life, which as an actor is a great experience because you get to observe people.
I never got why actors don't like it when a fan comes up to them on the street. It is cool that someone recognizes what you do and makes you feel like you live in a community.
I think if you're an actor, then you can work on stage - but if you've never done it before, you're going to have picked up a few things that you're going to need to change when you're working on stage.
As an actor, you always have to reinvent yourself or you end up in the gutter somewhere. It's my job to always change people's minds. I've known that for a long time and I've had to do it.
Change is vital to any actor. If you keep playing lead after lead, you're really gonna dry up. Because all those vehicles wean you away from the truths of human behaviour.
White actors still get way more money in Hollywood. It's been that way for a very long time. I hope it'll change, but it's a matter of forcing that change.
I think everybody else in Hollywood, including network execs, has the opportunity to ask for a raise or a change in scenery in a much shorter time frame than actors. But I do think the networks have to protect themselves.
So I started to learn Russian and I was one of those probably way too eager, annoying young actor kids who was trying to change all my lines to Russian, much to the dismay of the director and Nic Cage.
If you want to have more options as an actor, you just need to watch your weight, and I've ignored that fact for several years quite happily. Now the chicks have come home to roost.
Antwone's story was a story of hope and that's what appealed to me. I needed hope myself at that time. I think all actors give up at some time and think they're never going to make it.
You just hope that you will get the opportunity to do what you love and pay your bills, and that is being a success as an actor.
You hope for that with anything, but with a TV show, the writer and the actor being the right mix are more important than the actual writing of the pilot because you hope it's something that can have a long life.
I don't often get recognized for my work, but I look familiar. I'm just a working-man actor. I go and audition, and you just hope the work keeps coming.
It's true that the skills required to be a conman are the same as those required for being an actor. Though those skills are in the service of something a bit more noble with acting, I hope.
I'm happy to see the United States and China cooperating more and more with movies. The entertainment industry in China is developing very fast. I hope there can be a bridge for actors to work in both places.
Oftentimes, actors don't have the luxury of picking their part. You go from one project to the next, and you hope that you find one that fits you and that you're suited for, and then they see that you're fit for it.
I started off as a director, so when I see other actors directing, it gives me hope that maybe they'll put me into that position at some point, too.
Going through the ranks and all the training you do as an actor, you hope you're going to make it. But there's a part of you that's got to be realistic and say: 'Look, it might not happen to me.'
It's a bit of a history lesson, being an actor. I was in 'Burnt By The Sun' at the National, which was set in Stalinist Russia, so I discovered all about that. You learn so much as you go along.
Doing 'Prometheus' was what you imagine being an actor is like when you're five. In a spacesuit, on another planet, getting killed by an alien. It was a real treat; it felt like being a part of movie history.
