It turns out that my memory is just not that great, so for specific scenes with people doing stuff, sometimes I'd have the details all wrong or I couldn't remember what happened exactly, so I just let that be.
Television is fast and loose. You have two or three takes to get your part right, and if you have a problem, well, by the time you figure it out, everyone's moved on to the next scene. It's good training, keeps you on your toes.
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...
Sometimes fake laughing is hard once you've done a scene 18 times. I don't want to brag, but I have a reputation for being very, very good at that. It's funny finding what's challenging about acting as you go.
In movies, you don't get reactions: Live, when you do a joke, you know in a second whether it's good or bad. But in a movie, since no one is allowed to laugh or do anything, when you're done with a scene, you're left asking, 'Was that funny?'
Especially with a comedy, you've got the clear cut goal of trying to make a scene funny. It's not like drama where you're trying to achieve some kind of emotion or trying to further the story along. You're trying to figure out what's the funniest way...
The thing with film and theater is that you always know the story so you can play certain cues in each scene with the knowledge that you know where the story's going to end and how it's going to go. But on television nobody knows what's going to happ...
Well, it's more of a sane life to be part of an ensemble! I find that the work can be more specific too and I have to really make sure I know where I am in the story because I'm not in every scene.
The greatest thrill is that moment when a thousand people are sitting in the dark, looking at the same scene, and they are all apprehending something that has not been spoken. That's the thrill of it, the miracle - that's what holds us to movies fore...
My mother had been an actress and we came from that world in New York, the theater world and the downtown sort of theater scene, and so I guess we didn't really have what you'd call like a Hollywood kind of life at all.
Sometimes I write about my own life. And sometimes I write about situations I see my friends going through. Sometimes I write about a scene I saw in a movie. I take inspiration from all different places.
Greater than scene is situation. Greater than situation is implication. Greater than all of these is a single, entire human being, who will never be confined in any frame.
The other guy I dug a lot was Burroughs because he was a smart man already; he learned it through the druggie pool - the street scene of an old aristocratic kind of man.
All I can really say is it's bloodier than hell. In this one I'm going to be much more direct and honest in my description of the actual killings and the crime scene.
I couldn't care less about who sees my bits... My friends asked how I could do scenes like that and not get excited, but it wasn't like that. My bits looked the size of a cashew nut!
Working with Jon Hamm was super-fun because he's a brilliant actor and he's very kind. I would hang around sets for scenes that I wasn't even in because I wanted to watch how he worked.
The storyboard artists job is to plan out shot for shot the whole show, write all the dialog, and decide the mood, action, jokes, pacing, etc of every scene.
Some film actors want to sit back and look at every scene and all that crap. No, you're an actor - tell the story, and when it's told, there's another one to tell.
I'm very well known for hiding my phone in really weird places. I can hide it in a refrigerator during a scene or under that bed. It's pretty bad, but at the end of the day we can all laugh at it.
I couldn't really relate to the fraternity or party scene, to the people out in the mall every day protesting one thing or another. I felt like there was no one I could relate to.
There's no longer any place for a Big Brother in this real world of ours. Instead, these so-called Little People have come on the scene. Interesting verbal contrast, don't you think?
