Movie acting is about covering the machinery. Stage acting is about exposing the machinery. In cinema, you should think the actor is playing himself, if he's that good. It looks very easy. It should. But it's not, I assure you.
A good choreographer is one that's going to collaborate, teach, guide - everything. The wonderful thing on 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' was that we had Philip Kwok - he choreographed John Woo's 'Hard Boiled,' and in the '70s, he was a martial arts actor...
If you're locked to the words on the script, as good as those scripted words are, if you didn't have the time to rehearse them correctly or if the perceived dynamic between the actors is different from what the writer imagined, and you're not allowed...
I think what makes a good actor's director is somebody who understands what I'm doing and is respectful of it, but who also has a vision and is directing me toward their vision in a way that feels productive.
I've had this unbelievable amount of good fortune and I'm just so thankful for it. But at the same time I feel exceptionally guilty. I have so many friends who are talented graduates of Juilliard and are exceptional actors and I'm the lucky one that ...
My friends, we all improvise together usually. So we write what I think is a good script but always leave a lot of room to find stuff on the day; and we always do find something. That's the advantage to having actors who are, in their own right, writ...
I sort of have open invitations from a lot of people to do TV. But it's very hard for me to do roles in sitcoms and movies because I'm not a great actor, so if the material isn't good, I'm in torment while I do it.
I don't mean to criticize anyone in any way that I wouldn't criticize myself. I think people should have fun, and have a good time, and enjoy the luck that we have to be lazy and dwell in consumerism. But I think that it's a balance. And our job as a...
What career? A man's got a body of film of about four movies in about 10 years or something. I do it because I think I can do a good job of something and I'll enjoy it, do it, and sort of vanish. I don't want to be an actor for hire.
My professional acting life, stage and screen, has brought me public support, emotional fulfillment and material comfort. It has brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and h...
With singing, the name of the game is to make yourself believable. When somebody hears you sing a song, and they say, 'Oh, that must have happened to him,' that's when you know you're transmitting. It's like being a good actor. You make people feel t...
I think you can really tell a good actor if you can put a camera on them and they can just talk and emote and react and you don't have to keep cutting away from them, because they are the language and the behavior. It's all a tour-de-force performanc...
When I was younger, I wanted to be a cop. Then I watched 'The Wild Wild West,' and so I wanted to be in the Secret Service like James West. At some point I realized, 'That guy is not in the Secret Service. He's an actor.' That sounds like a good idea...
I'm not particularly good at 'celebrity'; I don't think it was something I was born to do. I think I can get by as an actor, but I've never been one for the red carpet and don't put a lot of stock in celebrities that are famous for being famous.
Some people think that there aren't many Aboriginal actors around, and if there are, they're not that good. It's stupid. There's such an incredible pool of talent out there, and they're still coming out of drama schools. People just need to take a le...
Don Lockwood: Tell me the truth, am I a good actor? Cosmo Brown: As long as I'm working for Monumental Pictures, you're the greatest of 'em all.
Let's face facts, this is visual medium, there's a very high premium put on people who are good-looking. But the minute you rely on that you get yourself in trouble. You certainly don't make a career out of that anymore as an actor.
It's something that I think I'm going to have to fight against for most of my career, for people to take me seriously as an actor as opposed to a good-looking guy. It's not what I want to be known as.
I love actors, both my parents were actors, and the work with actors is the most enjoyable part of making a film. It's important that they feel protected and are confident they won't be betrayed. When you create that atmosphere of trust, it's in the ...
It used to be that you kind of got pigeonholed into one thing - you're either a stage actor or a TV actor or a movie actor. Today, there's a lot of crossover with film actors doing television, which never happened before, so those lines are a little ...
Working with actors really depends on the actor. Most of the directors I've worked with don't really know how to speak to actors, actually; some of the best directors don't.
