Honestly, I really, really love making movies. It's so much fun, and I love losing myself in the moment and just being there with other actors. When you're truly in the moment and you're feeding each other, it's such an exciting thing to be a part of...
I did a movie called 'The Savages' with Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, where I played a nurse, and it showed me in a different role from what I played on 'The Wire.' It showed my range as an actor.
You know, OJ was a really nice guy, and he knew his lines. He was nice to everybody on the set. He got to be a better actor, I thought, with every movie.
Unless you have a long-running series, most actors just go job to job if you're lucky to keep working. You just do a movie or a play or a TV thing, and it's over at some point.
Use people whom you're excited by and who share your excitement... The ideal collaboration is one in which the actor and director are saying to each other, 'I can't believe how lucky we are to be making a movie together.'
One of the things I've learned as a filmmaker is to have some aspect of the movie be something that I admire greatly, whether that's an actor I'm working with, the subject matter, or a book.
If actors could actually make a living doing theater, that would be my first choice. Sitcoms are the closest thing to being onstage in front of an audience. If I had to choose, it would be theater and doing the occasional movie once in a while, and s...
I knew I wanted to be an actor when I was very young. I guess I was about 6 years old at the time, and I was fascinated by television. I started having waking fantasies where I was in a movie and there were crane shots of me during a scene.
I remember the first time my mind was blown by an actor was Tim Curry, because I loved 'Clue' when I was a kid, and then I was watching the movie 'Legend,' and the Devil suddenly smiles, and I was like, 'It's the same guy!' It was a total Keyser Soez...
It's important to me that I don't get trapped in the whole teen scene, because I feel that you can get lost in those kind of movies, and they aren't really about the actors; they're about the selling of the concept, and how much money it makes.
I have a particular love of an actor that I did work with, oddly, in 'Donnie Brasco,' who has since become a wonderful talent: Paul Giamatti. I would love to do a whole movie with Paul Giamatti.
I want to move people, stir something within them that makes them feel. That's what a movie should do and an actor should do, make you feel something. I think that's why people love films so much.
I try to enjoy a movie or a television programme just like anybody else. I'd love to be emerged into the story and watch it, but if you work a lot as an actor, in any aspect of the industry, things might arise in a programme that somebody might miss,...
Will Smith is one of my favorite actors, and he's also a triple threat. He successfully crossed over from music into acting. Also, I liked 'I Am Legend' because it was so unexpected. The movie wasn't what I thought it'd turn out to be.
How many actors have a shot at being a part of something that became a part of pop culture? It's been very rewarding. I'm not getting the 20 million bucks for the new movies, but at least I'm getting warmth and recognition from people wherever I go.
I do think people do pick movies that reveal something about them that they aren't always aware of. If you ask them what kind of an actor they think they are, they'll probably tell you something different than what they've actually done.
What we're supposed to do as actors is be able to portray real human beings and emotions. And if you grow up in this bubble of showbiz and you only know people who make movies, you don't really have an understanding of the world outside.
If you're not a real chameleon of an actor and if you're not one of those guys who can really shape-change themselves all the time, one of the ways to keep pushing yourself and keep changing is to be in different kinds of movies.
A producer is always behind the scenes, even more in the movies - nobody sees you. I didn't even meet most of the actors. When I worked on 'Top Gun,' I never met Tom Cruise. You were always in the background.
I think our culture has gotten so skewed. People assume that because you're an actor you want to write a book to exploit your celebrity, but my celebrity is only a byproduct of me making movies. I have no intention of being a celebrity.
It's a political and manipulative industry. Actors vie for the same roles, movies are snatched away. Have I ever been manipulated? Yes. But I haven't manipulated anyone because if you think from the heart, you cannot be calculative. I have spent nigh...
