Actors know, with me they aren't going to be allowed to rehearse a scene for a couple of hours and then get away with doing 25 takes before we get it right. So they come with their full bag of tricks.
I don't storyboard, and I don't really shot list. I let the shots be determined by how the actors and I figure out the blocking in a scene, and then from there, we cover it.
On 'Sin Nombre,' Adriano Goldman and I improvised a lot of things on-site. We were working with untrained actors, and you can't really block a scene in a traditional way.
I need theatre for my equilibrium, because in theatre the actors don't care so much about image, about celebrity - you are more independent. There is not the narcissism, maybe, that you find in cinema.
I like to look at scenarios and see how people interact with each other. That's why I'm an actor because I try to recreate that. Since our daughter joined us the spectrum has widened.
As an actor, you pay attention very closely to everything that happens to you, and you're constantly watching others as well, trying to just find out where everything comes from.
I've never been a waitress, hostess, bartender or any of the typical side jobs you'd expect an actor to have. This is partly because I've always been afraid of dropping plates on customer's heads.
'Law and Order' is completely story-driven and completely characterless, really. If you do that format for five years and you're an actor, you're bound to get bored. It wears on you. And it was really wearing on me.
I try not to have actors in mind when I write because the tendency then is to be influenced by either their last performance or your favourite of their performances.
I'm sort of one of those weird actors who whenever I do a play, I think, 'Oh, we should film this,' as opposed to have to belt it out of ourselves in a theater auditorium.
More than anything, what we do as actors is to sit and watch, and I would never want to get so lost in the celebrity bubble I couldn't do that because my feet no longer touch the ground.
I wanted to be a doctor when I was young. I also wanted to be a paramedic, but I always wanted to be an actor as well. I didn't have kids or something that I needed to provide for.
When a subject pops into a director's head, you either fit in there somewhere, or you don't. An actor is only who he is. Especially as you get older, there's not as much of a range of potentially feasible parts.
Painting and photography keep the creative channel open, and for an actor, it's to keep alive, it's to keep awake, it's to keep watching, it's to keep feeling, it's to keep enjoying, to keep that sensuality of feeling alive.
You can take wonderfully talented actors, wonderfully talented writers and producers, and, uh, do a wonderful show!... but if it doesn't hit with the public in two minutes, it's bye-bye.
Being on stage is a seductive lifestyle. My advice to aspiring actors is think twice. People sometimes go into acting for the wrong reasons - as a shortcut to fame and fortune. If these goals are not attained, they feel a bitter disappointment.
There's something about doing theatre in London - it sinks a little bit deeper into your soul as an actor. It's something about the tradition of theatre, about performing on the West End stage.
You get the information, and it's not your job to judge it or not judge it. You adapt, and you do it. That's what we do as actors. We're just as surprised as the viewers, sometimes.
I think when your image becomes so big that it's hard for a viewer to see a character, then I think you're in danger as an actor of being unable to perform what you should be doing.
Actors, to a certain extent, never grow up, you see. It's an extension of being out in the back yard with a stick, only you're being paid to do it. It's borderline madness.
When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a rock star, not an actor. It means I can do what I want on my own terms.
