I've done stuff to pay my dues and that's what actors are supposed to do, because I was a really bad actor when I was 18 or 20.
I think most actors are shy. I really do. The greatest actors can disappear. I had friends call me the Blend-In Man.
But I would like to think that it's the actor that makes the difference in these cases. Not the director, not the guy that wrote the book, not the guy that adapted it for the screen, but the actor.
Actors always start with the voice and language. That's wrong. They should start with the body. The body is an actor's most important resource.
When actors get a bad name for diva behavior - I've never seen it. Because my experience with people who are really famous actors is that they work really hard.
Anytime you get to work with an actor who is beyond you in experience and talent, I feel like they make you a better actor. You really bring up your game.
I have actor friends, but they're not famous. I feel like if you're an actor or - famous, you have to overly prove that you're a normal, cool person.
Communication is the key, and it's one thing I had to learn-to talk to the actors. I was so involved with the visual and technical aspects that I would forget about the actors.
I mean, you know, actors lives - you're forgotten. Look at Barrymore, and look at all the great actors. They're forgotten after awhile.
I know some really great actors who are pretty judgmental people, pretty critical people. But they're great actors. When they're acting, that's the craft.
I mean, the actors that I admired were Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, an actress named Barbara Harris. And Greta Garbo. They were great actors.
The great actors we had came from the actor-manager theaters. Not only did they create a team, they were the generals working with the soldiers.
Theatre is the principal job of an actor. An actor's job is to tell a story to someone in a room. TV and film can be great and I really love doing it, but it is a different way of telling a story.
Getting bad reviews or doing something that's not great is also really good for you as an actor. It also makes me feel as an actor that I've earned my stripes a bit.
To me, a lot of what makes a good actor is not what a teacher tells you to do but how you respond when you're on your own.
I think good actors - good, collaborative actors who see themselves as leaders in a given production - can and should offer ideas that have nothing to do with wanting to direct themselves.
I've really had good luck working with younger actors. Every younger actor that I have worked with has always been really on top of their game and fascinating to watch.
I've said this so many times but there's a magic when you have a really good actor in a really good makeup.
But the one thing that I did do was establish myself as a good actor.
When you work with actors, what you're hoping to absorb is good ways to be an actor as opposed to how to handle being famous.
As a jobbing actor, I never get a script and go 'I can't be bothered with this.' Life doesn't work like that. For a movie star, maybe, but for a jobbing actor, that doesn't happen.
