In the original script, my character was a basketball player rather than a boxer. I didn't think I could pull that off. I'm a little short to be a basketball player!
I'm naturally going to react to that and he'll bring out elements in my musical character that were lying dormant, because I'm relating what he's playing.
I believe in books. I believe more in 'cross-media' - how characters are adapting across mediums.
I was brought up on Dickens. I remember reading 'Bleak House' but, coming back to it, I didn't remember much about it apart from a few characters.
I really enjoyed playing Vinny Vedecci, the Italian talk show host. He was the first character I ever came up with where I gave him a name and a way of dressing.
I'm a character actor, so I don't take the hit if the movie's bad, the lead does. So, I don't want to be the lead. He takes the hit, I don't.
The interesting part of the process is developing the character, you know, why did he become that? Why is the guy a murderer, or why is this guy a pervert, or whatever he is. So that's the fun part for me to delve into the abyss.
Singing is an incredible expression and something that is important to me, but where I feel comfortable with how much I reveal about myself is acting. I enjoy the characters, the costumes, the wigs and just being a chameleon.
It's just I hate reading the description 'offbeat' about a character in a script, because I, along with Seth Green, Jamie Kennedy and a few others, have cornered the market on 'offbeat.'
People who change history and their generation are willing to endure and overcome ridicule, rejection, character assassination and being talked about. Don't settle for mediocre.
I find all of my performances come down to mathematics in a sense - how do you approach the problem of this character? Sometimes I crack that problem, sometimes I don't.
I've dropped myself into straightforward character pieces in order to explore that form and reap its values. But you are sort of restricted visually when your first requirement is to tell a fairly straightforward story.
As I read, I start to form clear ideas of the characters and allow myself to be a proper conduit for this author's voice so that you will feel you have been on a seductive audio journey.
It was important to have a similar energy in my performance. To make the character too different would have just been about my ego because it didn't need to be drastically different.
I mean it allowed me to do that which was fantastic because we really get to see the character mature and deal with some things that are, that I think as an audience member, really pull us in.
People like casting me as these characters who definitely have an edge to them, but I don't really think 'bad boy' is something anyone can say about themselves without sounding stupid.
The issue for my character, and the issue of the show is, how dirty do your feet have to get without suffocating yourself in the mud in order to get an inch of what you really want done?
Sometimes after a compliment about my characterization skills, I'm asked if I model my characters on real people. Emphatically, no. And sort of, yes.
For the third season, we do a sit around on one episode where we were in character and then we commented on one episode just being ourselves, so - not really. I was comfortable, though. I wasn't nervous.
I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.
Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These things will come in almost automatically because the characters are now pulling the story.
