After college, I funded my short films with acting roles in film and TV. I learned my craft through the great opportunities British television gave me as a director.
All the things you can do to prepare for a role that free you, in the moment, are great. You have this muscle memory for things. You don't have to act it as much, once you've done it enough.
The great thing about TV is that it's so fluid. When you bring in someone for one quick role and they're fantastic, you can bring them back.
My story is really an affirmation of my strength and my luck. To live with a great artist like Ted Hughes or Mick Jagger is a very, very destructive role for a woman trying to be herself. In fact, it can't be done.
I'd never played a cop before, and this particular role with what she is going thru, especially during the first season, covering her alcoholism to her on the job performance, was a great opportunity for me as an actress.
Improv plays such a huge role in finding great lines - you'll be surprised at what comes out of your mind inadvertently. A lot of times it's better than a script you've worked out ahead of time.
I'm an actor who wants to do great parts, and I've been very fortunate, for a long time, to get meaty roles, and sometimes some of them are meatier than others.
People come up to me and say, 'You are such a great bad guy.' The fact is that the antagonist in a movie is usually the most fun to play. You can stretch the role and do so much with it.
Steve Jobs had very strong feelings about what makes a company great, what makes products great. He more or less chose Tim Cook to be in that role, in that position.
I think if you're good and you can persuade people you're going to be able to do that role and ultimately the audience buys it, then it doesn't matter whether you were really a chimpanzee in disguise! You've done it.
More and more good actors are now transmigrating into the videogame space and playing roles there because it's where my generation of kids get stories from.
It's interesting going between small parts and then bigger roles where you carry the film. If the writing is good, and if the people involved have integrity, then you'll do it, even if it's only five minutes on screen.
You get a feeling about things, and if you trust yourself, which I've grown to do, I felt like I had a pretty good indication of how to play the role.
I don't mind being identified as any character as long as I'm doing a good job as an actor. I have done all kinds of roles - from an editor, judge, police officer, murderer to a corrupt businessman.
I would like to do more dramas when I find a good role that will allow me to politely upset people's expectations of me as a comic actor.
Hmm, limelight... No, I'm not Sienna Miller or Angelina Jolie. I'm very lucky and happy, but I still find it very difficult to get good scripts and good roles. It's really a jungle out there.
I read the script, and I knew it was a good part. It was written for a white actor. That's what I'm up against - I have to try to make roles happen for me that aren't written black.
Most good roles are written for young men. We are fixated on youth. So however much people say there is nothing wrong with being bald, the reality is once the hair is gone, you might not get the parts.
I had a good theater career for years. I played Hamlet when I was 22, and I've played some really great roles.
The kind of role I play is like an offensive lineman; doing a good job but not being noticed. I feel sorry for myself sometimes. But as long as the end result is there, I can dig it.
I know that the work is good and they're excited over at ABC and Disney and it's getting some really good feedback. It's not just a little, insignificant kind of role. It's meaty, which is good.
