As long as I can make an audience feel something, I don't care whether it's a good thing or bad thing, just to feel something is important to me.
But sometimes it's good to dare yourself to do the unthinkable. And rather than stand in front of an audience with no clothes on, I decided to have a go at stand-up comedy.
I always found the Chicago audience to be a smart, fast-moving, violent and cheerful lot, and it's always good to be back.
These actors like Danny McBride and Jonah Hill are so good at improvising, and when they do it, it's this fun moment for the audience. It makes them feel like they're watching something fresh and new.
I'm having fun opening up. Sort of struggling to get the audience into it. It's good. It makes you fight. Not fight like antagonistic. But fight for what you believe.
Humanizing good people is kind of boring and I don't really see the value in it... humanizing tricky characters is exhilarating, and making audience films out of indie subjects excites me.
Virtue is not photogenic, so I liked playing bad guys. But, whenever I played a bad guy, I tried to find something good in him, and that kept my contact with the audience.
I love writing for young adults because they are such a wonderful audience, they are good readers, and they care about the books they read.
It's certainly more interesting for me as an actor, but I think it's also more interesting for the audience to see three-dimensional characters, rather than just a bad guy or a good guy.
When I sing for myself, I sing in a more free, athletic way. When I face an audience, there is always some fear that makes me put the brakes on a bit.
While data can only tell you what has happened in the past, it can in some ways give you a sense of what might be of interest to an audience in the future.
TV is easier: it's all planned out for you and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over.
What's great about having an audience is they can let you know what they don't think is funny, and you can just cut that out and keep trying.
I've never found kicks to the groin particularly funny, although recent work in the genre of the buddy movie suggests audience research must prove me wrong.
I'm definitely guilty of thinking something is funny but thinking the audience won't. Then three years later I will finally try it and it'll kill them. I got to give them more credit.
So that, to me, is important that audiences are treated with an amount of respect toward their intelligence. Most Hollywood films don't respect their intelligence.
I like making stories and characters that people can relate to. I also like giving the audience a departure from whatever they're thinking about in their life and enjoying a show or a movie.
In real life, you just work for the ordinary self, but in the front of audience you become the superself. That's a completely different thing.
I like working solo and it was a lot of fun joking around with the audience, saying things. I'm only just learning how to do certain things.
I am doing what I love to do, and you cannot beat that, especially when the audience appreciates what you prepare for them. It's very, very gratifying.
With stand-up, it doesn't matter who you are. If the audience claps because they love your movies, that clapping stops after five seconds, and then it's your job to make them laugh.
