Some of the screen's best moments were realized because a director went against all reason, all logic. No matter how incredible a story seems, it can be made credible. If you feel an insane idea strongly enough, you've usually got something.
I see myself more as an action director. All right, I do enjoy intense, bloodthirsty action but I like to blend and cross genres. I don't want to be too predictable.
You go for an audition, and you meet a director, and you find that they don't want you. You have to have a pull with them: that they understand what you want to bring to it. That you don't want to be the pretty little thing.
The only thing we are as actors are messengers. That's all we are. Correct? We are delivering the playwright's intention through the concept of the director. And I come on stage; if I feel confident in the role, then I give it away.
I did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay. It was probably harder for a regular director. He probably had to read the script the night before shooting started.
I would like - either as an actor, or producer or even director - to do something sci-fi or action-related. I like sci-fi, always have, 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars' and all that stuff.
But I don't really care for directors flaring up and trying to humble some actor, which they would do to try and make an example out of them so everybody else would stay on the ball - and David wasn't anything like that.
Also, I plan to screw something up on every movie I do so that I can learn from my mistakes and become a better director with each project.
Different directors have different things, so when I left Mike Leigh, as it were, and I went into other projects after 'All or Nothing,' it took some getting used to - what do you mean there's a script?!?' That kind of thing.
What happens is things come to you - director, script - and if you respond to it, it's because it's tapping into some part of what's inside you, and different roles tap into different parts.
Appearing in 'Legally Blonde' has helped me find my inner girl, although at the beginning the director was constantly telling me off for sitting like a boy, with my legs apart, while wearing a cocktail dress and heels!
I often meet young directors who, you know, had a 'Ghostbusters' picture on their wall as they were growing up. And it's really nice. It just shows how inter-generational our industry is.
Actors have seven tracks going in their minds: They've got all the research they've done for the part, then they have whatever the director asked them to do, then they've got what the departments like special effects need them to do.
I don't want to be an editor! I don't want to direct; I'd be a horrible director. I don't want to write - I have a 'story by' credit on one film I did. And I don't want to edit at all.
All I mean is, I'm not the kind of audience comedy directors want at a test screening because I seldom laugh, and if I do, it's not very loud. That doesn't mean I don't like the movie.
I think everyone's different but in comedy, I try to do my scene to make the director and the other actors laugh. If I can make them laugh and we have the same sensibility, then I'm on the right page.
A lot of people are very interested that a Korean director has made a western. But when I look at the reactions of the audience, I realise the points at which people laugh are the same for a Korean audience and an international audience.
I've always found it strange that a director can hire any designer he wants from any country. But if he hires a foreign actor, it's like he's stolen the crown jewels and run across the river with them.
It's a morality film, and it poses the question 'What would you do?' I took it very seriously, just as the director did in terms of atmosphere and lighting, and I was just trying to help that vision along.
My mum is deeply, deeply a man's woman, a man's muse. Maybe because I'm a kid from the '80s, I'm a bit more dominant. I wanted to be the muse and the director also. I wanted to be the man and the woman.
For a while, I thought, maybe I should direct, until I got to New York and saw the stupidity of that idea. If it's hard to get into acting, what is it like for a woman to become a director?
