I think the best thing I ever did was never tell anyone I wanted to be an actor. I find if you tell people what you're dreaming about, they'll usually come up with lots of reasons to not chase your dreams.
I always tell Asian actors, especially Filipinos wanting to break into Hollywood, to study, study and study and show their best. I haven't stopped studying. There's an abundance of roles, and all you have to do is prove to them that you are good for ...
We have the best driver in the world in drifting and best guy in rally racing and stuff like that. So obviously there's a lot of stuff that I didn't do, but there's a lot of really incredible things that I don't think we've ever seen an actor do.
That's the best thing about being an actor. If you're in a baseball movie, you walk away knowing way more about baseball, or if you're in a sci-fi film, you learn way more about Comic-Con, and so I loved all that.
The last movie I did, I was very lucky: I got to work with probably the best actor of our era, Billy Bob Thornton. He's just incredible. I was like a sponge: I soaked up everything he had to say.
I honestly have no interest in celebrity whatsoever. If anything, I always cringe at it because it takes away from what I am, which is an actor who wants to be better and do better things.
The thing is, I want to play real characters and not all girls can be pretty. The thing is, you get these girls who say 'I'm a character actor' then you see them in a role and nothing has really changed but the outfit.
I kinda lose my mind in 'Fringe,' or at least my character does. Whenever I'm acting, I tend to accidentally become unable to switch off the character. I'm a little bit of a method actor, but without really wanting to be.
I don't think they're gratuitous with the nudity on 'Game of Thrones.' It's very much part of the world. There's a lot of it, but that's the world they come from. It never is there to distract from the scene or the actors or story.
You can feel yourself trying too hard, doing too much. Nobody wants to watch somebody when they're needy, and actors are in the unfortunate position of needing to be cast and needing to be liked.
A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific.
As actors, if we are truthful to ourselves and we know what we can do and what we cannot do and just go after it, there are possibilities out there. If you don't try, you won't find out if you get them or not.
It's not like suddenly, when you become a working actor all your friends are in the same situation. I have friends who are still handing out flyers for their one-woman show and trying to make ends meet.
I know it might seem a little superficial, but every actor has their thing. Some people focus on the walk, but for me, it's all about the nails and the voice. Those are the two most important things.
When you start out on a project as an actor, you know, you approach the character from the standpoint of maybe writing a list - even if it's a mental list that you make - of the adjectives that the character has or that character possesses.
Every person wants to stretch himself and widen his audience. Since Hollywood has got more exposure and is shown all over the world, it's obvious that every actor would want to do an English film and explore himself.
For a found-footage-style movie, there's a definite advantage in using unknowns, because it helps sell the illusion that it's real. A known actor would get in the way of the suspension of disbelief.
When you're a working actor and you're happy to be one, you can't focus all your energy on acting because you will go crazy. You have to focus as much energy as you can away from yourself.
I'm never certain of a performance - my own or the other actors' - or the script or anything... But to me it seems there's only one place in the world the camera can be, and the decision usually comes immediately.
All of a sudden I'm an actor, and I spend a decade trying to fit in and realising that I didn't, really. Sometimes in the right circumstances, with the right people, it felt OK. But other times it was a bit more jobbing. I didn't fit the mould, someh...
I hated improvisation because in my early days as an actor, improvisation meant somebody had just come down from Oxford and they were doing a play above a pub in Kentish Town, and the biggest ego would win.
