I suddenly realized that comedy, for me, was just being honest, and playing it for real. I've seen so many wonderful actors who turn into creatures from another planet when they're told they are supposed to be playing comedy.
I tend to get comfortable with the dialogue and find out who the person is in the script and try to hit that. People are sort of independent of their occupations and their pastimes. You don't play a politician or a fireman or a cowboy - you just play...
I think I must be the only British actor who's played both Stalin and Trotsky. I need to play Lenin so I can make it a triptych.
If you're feeling discouraged and defeated—don't quit. Play on, hope on, and move forward. The music you play—even in the midst of incredible darkness—can and will turn the tide of your own battles.
What you think of yourself will shape your future. Life is too short to play it small. Play the life of an influencer and impacter, rather than that of a follower and mediocre.
'Badmaash Company' and 'Delhi Belly' was about friends, and I was part of the gang. And yes, they did have stars playing the lead! You do need a star to sell a film; and playing the second lead doesn't bother me.
Over the years, I've had to learn to play. For example, when 'Lennon' was on Broadway, I learned my way around the guitar chords because originally we were all going to play the instruments without a band.
'The Fever' is a one-person play. I decided I would perform it myself, and I decided I would not perform it in theaters, because the character in the play says certain things that I meant.
You pressure, you want possession, you want to attack. Some teams can't or don't pass the ball. What are you playing for? What's the point? That's not football. Combine, pass, play. That's football - for me, at least.
Without a doubt, even when I play with Black Label, when we have different guys I play with, everyone always brings their own magic, their own flavor to the soup, hands down.
But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you cr...
Unlike me, a lot of child actors are very short, which is why they work. So when they're 15 they can play 11 or when they're 18 they can play 14. They look young for so long, they have abilities a much younger kid wouldn't have.
The dream would be to work with my two favorite actors, Daniel Day Lewis and Cate Blanchett. Or playing Joaquin Phoenix's brother in a film. Basically anything where I get to act opposite actors like these; ones who bring a certain caliber to their w...
When I look at my body of work, I've played a lot of characters who are morally conflicted - 'I'm right, no I'm wrong, I don't know what to do!' I want to play more characters who don't care as much, and who aren't as measured. They are what they are...
You know, I'm confident before I go out and play a match that I know, you know, I've put in the work and like I feel confident that I am going to go out there and play well.
People are composed of many things, and in my work, what influences me is the complexity of people - the chiaroscuro of dark and light. When I play a strong guy, I try to find, where is he weak? And, conversely, when I play a weak guy, where is he st...
At first I probably seem very abrupt, but I like efficiency. There's work and there's play, and I always think: 'Let's get the work over with so we can thoroughly enjoy the play.'
Scientists who study play, in animals and humans alike, are developing a consensus view that play is something more than a way for restless kids to work off steam; more than a way for chubby kids to burn off calories; more than a frivolous luxury.
Instead of playing something heavily, I play it lightly. Since people like to cast cyclically, once you've done one thing, people want to put you in that bag again. And since I want to work, I let it happen.
I play an 89-year-old man whose wife has Alzheimer's in a movie called 'Still.' I play a World War II veteran, I acted with my son and it's called 'Memorial Day.'
My first paying gig was a play called 'The Voice of the Prairie' at a theater that no longer exists in Chicago called Wisdom Bridge. I played a fast-talking radio huckster - a salesman of crystal sets in the 1920s - and I actually won an award. Look ...
