As an actor, there's very little you can do if people don't want to see you. Just getting yourself into the room to audition is tough.
I stand to learn more working as an actor with really talented people than I do by directing a feature.
Before I was an actor I was an apprentice jockey, and now I'm out there racing against boys, sort of the spokesperson for people over 50 that they can do it.
Actors, I don't think, ever really grow up. I'm hoping that that rejuvenating process applies to me, too. It has so far. I've been very lucky.
You have to pretend to live in those clothes that they lived in, to live within the climate that they had then. You have to imagine with the help, obviously, of all the other technicians that are around - the writer, the director, the other actors.
I grew up loving actresses or actors who were very classy but who seemed a little bit mysterious because you couldn't grasp what they're really thinking.
I consider myself a 'local' actor in France. I started out in France, I went to drama school in France and the French film community was very welcoming to me when I was a young actress.
I want to make a clear distinction between people who take acting seriously and people who call themselves actors because they've been on reality TV or something.
Somewhere in talking and rehearsing, there is a magical moment where actors catch a current, they're on the right road. If they really catch it, then whatever they do from then on is correct and it all comes out of them from that point on.
I want what's mine. I see other actors who are doing very interesting roles, and I just want to continue to do things that are interesting, and things that people will go see in theaters.
Even through my college years, I was trying out plays and shows, but I never really thought it made much sense to try to be an actor. I thought it was foolish, really.
When my father was a young actor, it is absolutely true that the vast majority were fairly middle class. Then all of a sudden, people like Albert Finney burst through and turned all that on its head.
Christian Grey - he isn't a real person. He's a superhero. A myth. He's like Bigfoot! He's unbelievable. He's unattainable. There's no actor in the world who could live up to that.
Although just being employed as an actor is a big thing, I'm not sure I'd be satisfied playing the same character for 30 years; it's not why I want to do this for a living.
Street-casting - people like Katie Jarvis in 'Fish Tank,' spotted having a row with her boyfriend on a railway platform - has helped make actors raise their game. They have to.
I think as an actor you have to be open to your emotions - that's how you tap into other characters. Besides, by being so open I've come to terms with how screwed I am!
I don't have any theories about acting, and I don't think about how to do it, except that an actor shouldn't take himself too seriously, and shouldn't try to make acting something it isn't.
The actor always must be in the scene, not above the scene. To communicate any larger ideas is my problem; it's how the narrative is constructed and directed that hopefully does it.
It's very difficult to put your finger on why a certain actor or actress will capture your attention, and you'll think they're right for a role. There's an essence to a person.
I'm sort lucky in that for me, I'm a writer now. I started as an actor but I'm a writer and so things like 'Wilfred' and shows like that are where I escape to.
I mean, I didn't ever watch 'Gilligan's Island' and think, 'Those people are actors.' I lived in West Virginia. Hollywood just felt like this total other universe.
