The problem with comedy audiences - it's like the Coliseum - when they see someone struggling, they don't feel altruistic towards them. They feel slightly repulsed by it.
You need the audience to become invested in the characters and in order to become invested, they need to identify with the characters... and that's why the characters need to be real.
I want to try something different in Hollywood, to tell the audience I am not just an actor star - I am an actor, too.
I've never been one to sit back and go, 'I'd better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don't want to lose them.'
I won't make shorthand films, because I don't want to manipulate audiences into assuming quick, manufactured truths.
I write about what interests me. It's very dangerous when you try to satisfy an audience.
During the first few minutes of your presentation, your job is to assure the audience members that you are not going to waste their time and attention.
I wanted this to have as wide an audience as possible. I didn't want to get an X rating, because in my opinion once that happens you X-out everyone else.
I'm the know-nothing. I'm curious, I try to be entertaining, I try to translate the techno jargon, but in the end I'm the audience's representative.
I write on sacred stories, symbols and rituals of all cultures - European, American and Chinese - but my audiences, typically, like me to focus on India.
My interpretation of a strong director is someone who knows their story. That's what directors are, they're storytellers because they're directing where your focus is going to be as an audience.
Getting an audience requires luck as well as talent. Some artists are private and shy. It costs them too much.
There's nothing like a play. It's so immediate and every performance is different. As an actor, you have the most control over what the audience is seeing.
On a practical level I'm a TV producer and storyteller who's gone about as long as you can go without achieving a mass audience.
Drama or comedy programming is still the surest way for advertisers to reach a mass audience. Once that changes, all bets are off.
When audiences look at an action actor like myself, sometimes we are very easily stereotyped or characterized as one type. They forget that we are actors, too.
Actors are always grabbing each other on stage, looking in each other's eyes, making a moment so private, the audience doesn't know what they're doing.
My victory is when the audience buys a ticket to watch my film. I am extremely thrilled when they give it a thumbs-up.
I felt audiences are happier to take comedy people who play darker people because there's a link between the psychosis of comedy and the psychosis of being a twisted character.
Why would I care what other people are thinking? I don't care what an audience thinks of me.
Once you've experienced the warmth of an audience, the achievement of getting your first laugh, and entertaining them, singing or playing piano, it just keeps it all going.
