I always feel the most validated and confident being around people that I find funny - having Fred Armisen laugh at a scene or Bill Hader or Seth Meyers give me a compliment.
You don't even really get used to doing scenes where you have to kiss, or be particularly intimate, with another person who's not actually your lover in real life.
I'm just always learning lines. I've learned to flag the really crucial scenes, and I start figuring them out and committing them to memory as soon as I get them.
It's always weird doing love scenes. And the thing is, you can't really photograph two people kissing naturally, because then you wouldn't be able to see anything.
I have done so many love scenes in the past that I have learned how to pull off a sexy smoulder on the dance floor.
I love directing scenes that I'm not in because suddenly I really feel like a filmmaker which is a different thing.
I think my advice to other actors would be to get in classes. Get out in front of people. Put up scenes in front of your peers.
I treat any scene the same - dialogue, action - you're still creating something in character. It's all acting, fighting.
As long as I'm around the cats in the hip hop scene, they'll throw me a track and I'll write a rap over it.
I'm Sudafed-ed up, but it's alright because I'm having to do this rather sultry scene, so maybe it's OK that my voice is three octaves lower.
I can read a four-page scene once and have it memorized. It's a skill you learn in school: disposable cramming.
You never see the entire script of political theater until long after the last scene has been acted out.
I think the first couple of times you do make-out scenes, you psych yourself out and it's really nerve racking.
Long scenes of emotion are quite difficult - you've got to build up to them and make sure you're in the right emotional space.
I can remember on the first day on 'Chatroom,' it was just one scene for the whole day, which was a really nice luxury to have.
There's nothing sexy about doing a nude scene. It's rather uncomfortable. I like dressing up rather than dressing down.
In 'Cavalry,' I had one scene where I was playing a pretty awful character.
When an actor plays a scene exactly the way a director orders, it isn't acting. It's following instructions. Anyone with the physical qualifications can do that.
Any time a writer thinks he has all the answers to how someone should talk or react or end a scene, it's a spontaneity-killer.
I was in Deadwood at the time and on hearing of the killing made my way at once to the scene of the shooting and found that my friend had been killed by McCall.
Working on a film, the setup for an action sequence takes a long time, and we need to shoot the scene many times to get different angles.
