Sometimes a scene may be about one thing, and it may end up still being about that, but the emotionality of it comes from somewhere else, or the humor of it comes from somewhere else, and it gives it that real-life quality.
I like a twisted sense of humour. On 'A History of Violence,' David Cronenberg and I would be doing the grimmest scenes and laugh a lot.
Only the change on the international scene, the crisis in the gulf, and the strong, firm position of the United States against aggression between two Arab countries created realities that led to the Madrid Peace Conference.
'Fast & Furious' is a well-oiled machine. Those guys really know what they're doing. The guys that work behind the scenes are just as important as the ones in front of the cameras. They are car enthusiasts. They live and breathe this world.
The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.
The thing is, I love a great death scene - no good actor doesn't. Sorry, any actor, I should say.
For 'Spartacus,' we've committed 100 percent of our production time to creating great scenes. So all the training I do is on my own time. And that's pretty limited.
I think I went more toward writing because that's my talent. I don't think I was a great performer... And I like being behind the scenes a little bit.
I start with the history, and I ask myself, 'What are the great turning points? What are the big dramatic scenes that are essential to telling the story?'
Congress suffers a great deal of criticism for its partisan acrimony. But while we may disagree politically, and air our opposition in this chamber, it is the conversation behind the scenes that cements and defines our relationships.
A lot of the struggle I had with movies is I really loved moments and tones and feelings in a scene, and I loved creating those, but I never really had great stories to string them together.
I'd like to do a story about the medieval ages where in every scene you'd sort of feel that you were in the 12th century. That would be great to get that feeling.
If I have enough ego to say I'm a writer, a director, a producer, and an actor, I should have the energy and the knowledge to write a scene for this great actor named Henry Fonda and direct him in it and have it work.
The first time I heard Johnny play at the Fillmore East, I wasn't really impressed. He had come on the scene with everybody telling me how great he was, and I didn't hear it.
Great nations are simply the operating fronts of behind-the-scenes, vastly ambitious individuals who had become so effectively powerful because of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the national scenery.
Fight scenes are like learning a dance. You learn it move by move, and then you put it all together and it looks awesome when you edit it together. It's great!
I love doing action scenes, there's that great thing when you sort of stop acting because if you're running, you're not acting like you're running, you are just actually running.
Good actors, especially when they know their character, will come in and either tell you in advance that they have an idea, or in the middle of the rehearsal or the scene they'll let it loose and you go, 'Ah that's great.'
A lot of times you have very ego-driven actors and actresses that stay in their little world, and when you have a scene together, your worlds meet for a moment. But I don't think that makes for a very good cohesion.
For ages, in my lunch hours, I would just go round and choreograph fight scenes. For fun. So now I'm very good at being thrown around. I bounce, in the words of my friends.
'The Fight Club' DVD is great. I like anything that has really good extras because as an actor, it's really great to see the behind-the-scenes stuff and see how different actors approach their particular project.
