In a sense, 'Schmidt' is the most Omaha of my films. But have I gotten it right? I'm not sure. Did Fellini get Rome right? Did Ozu get Tokyo right?
But it's just that the whole country is making generally lousy films these days and has been for quite a while. That's the big problem that we all have to think about.
With independent film, as an actor, you have more involvement - it's very much more connected. It's not just like I'm showing up and there's another actor on the call sheet; you're very attached to it.
For film and games, there is now a fantastic method of actors portraying characters which don't necessarily look like themselves. And yet you've still got the heart and soul of the performance.
People think, 'Oh, well how can 'The Hobbit,' which is one book, become three films?' But you can take one line from an appendice and it turns into a whole sequence.
My friend James Cameron and I made three films together - True Lies, The Terminator and Terminator 2. Of course, that was during his early, low-budget, art-house period.
I knew nothing about film at all. I suppose the biggest surprise is all these things. In the theatre we sort of do, I might do two or three key interviews and that would be it.
Eventually, the state's funding covered only the stages leading to presenting a film project to potential funding bodies. It was enough to produce a script, indicate casting and put together a budget to present it all, but nothing beyond that.
In the United States, viewers don't get to see a lot of things we can show in other countries. We didn't get to show our naked Twister game from Wild On Jamaica, but we definitely filmed it.
I was a film-directing major at NYU. I'm still not sure why I became a directing major, when I was really an actor and a comedian, but there was something that drew me to doing that.
I think I'll get a little more interesting small parts and see if I can really... I guess you don't have to have the pressure on you compared to when you're a leading man in a film.
Well, there are three different processes of making a film, of course. They're sort of re-written three times. You write it to start with, and then you shoot it and you re-write it while shooting and you sort of re-write it as you edit.
Movie distribution may very well have migrated fully to digital form by then, making a huge dent in the need to print film and physically distribute content.
You live these three months in this reality, in this dark reality. You don't want to do those films every year because they're taxing. I started smoking a lot of cigarettes.
I am a big fan of Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller, who have carved a niche for themselves. I think doing different kind of films gives you longevity and the ability to set yourself apart.
'Badmaash Company' and 'Delhi Belly' was about friends, and I was part of the gang. And yes, they did have stars playing the lead! You do need a star to sell a film; and playing the second lead doesn't bother me.
You have to contort your body in a certain way to hit a low note. When you're on film, you can't. So you do, in a sense, get to hide behind your voice, which is nice.
I tend to be attracted to characters who are up against a wall with very few alternatives. And the film then becomes an examination of how they cope with very few options. And that's, I guess, what interests me in terms of human behavior.
I think what you learn, working on a film or TV set, is how to tune certain things out. You've got 60-100 people swirling around you, each of them with a very important job to do.
It's weird because I've grown up a lot after filming the first 'Hunger Games' movie. Growing up with a character is really interesting because you feel like you have this connection with the role.
I didn't set out to be a villain in film. I'm a character actor, and if my first movie was a comedy, I could have played a geek just as well.
