Improvisation has to do with exploring something like two brothers in a room together. You find out things about situations by discovering the things that they aren't saying. It's a way to explore scenes. Sometimes it's more useful than others, but i...
I think hallucinations need to be discussed. There are all sorts of hallucinations, and then many sorts which are okay, like the ones I think which most of us have in bed at night before we fall asleep, when we can see all sorts of patterns or faces ...
In 'Twice Born' I play my character in her 20s, 30s and 50s. For the fifty year old scenes, I had some prosthetics; it was interesting to see how I'm going to look when I'm fifty-five or so. I actually saw similarities between my grandmothers and my ...
I know pretty well in the broad sense what I'm going to do, because I have to know that when we shoot the live-action, so that it'll synchronize. Then I know pretty well when I get to the animation stage, what that scene requires.
Yakima Canutt was famously John Wayne's stunt double, and in the Western movie 'Stagecoach,' there is a fantastic scene where there are some horses thundering along, pulling a carriage. He climbs out onto the horses and drops down underneath them, so...
To be honest I don't watch the show, I don't watch any TV, so I have no idea what the show is about. I go to Hawaii, shot my scenes and script and 'Ciao.' I'm not a 'Lost' fanatic and it's a disappointment for thousands people and friends that are dy...
When we are shown scenes of starving children in Africa, with a call for us to do something to help them, the underlying ideological message is something like: "Don't think, don't politicize, forget about the true causes of their poverty, just act, c...
There is a scene in one comic from the '60s-'70s where Batman finds a film, a newsreel film, of his father. This newsreel film is from the '50s, and his father has come to this costume ball in a Zorro costume, which strangely enough looks a lot like ...
I try to stay away from stuff that's just action, action, action, action, action, and you kind of fast-forward through the dialogue scenes. I'm not interested in doing that. Give me a reason to fight, and I'll go there. But don't just make it, 'You t...
I try to learn from both, from features and documentaries. In both cases you have to find a way to make the camera as discreet as possible, and flexible enough to be able to capture the moment when it happens. I know from documentary how to not have ...
I used to get the feeling, and sometimes I still get it, that I was fooling somebody - I don't know who or what - maybe myself. I have feelings some days where there are scenes with a lot of responsibility, and I'll wish, 'Gee, if only I had been a c...
I did not like 'The Hurt Locker.' It's a lazy way to make a movie, frankly. I could put you on the edge of your seat quite easily, and have you feel the tension for 2 hours, if every other scene practically is, 'Should we cut the red wire or the gree...
It's marvelous when you visit Tokyo: they have these clubs, and they'll have 'Motown Night' or 'The Beatles - Totally Authentic and Live!' You know it's shrunk, but at least there's some sort of youthful figure to it. Whereas, the blues scene in Euro...
I learned a valuable lesson doing 'Mr. Sunshine,' which is that I didn't want to be in charge because it's too much. Being in charge and acting in every scene was just too difficult. It's like eating dinner in a moving golf cart every night.
Film acting, if you don't play the lead, you come, and you do your scenes in a few days, and you act with a couple of colleagues. All the rest of the actors you never see, and you don't even meet many of them. And you don't know what will happen with...
I loved shooting 'iGo to Japan' because we got to be outside a lot, and our call times were really late because we had so many night scenes. It was pouring rain, so the cast would huddle together in between takes and drink hot chocolate. Shooting tha...
Definitely as an actor, the experience you have, at least I'm talking for me, my experience as an actor is you go to the set and know what you're going to do, know your lines, you rehearse, you do your scene, you go back home. As a producer, for the ...
I would say, stay the hell away from the party scene. Anything you put in front of your goal, and especially something like that, whether it's too much gambling, too much food, too much cold beers on the weekend - anything that you put in front of th...
I have seen what the days of tribulation can do to people. I have seen hunger stalk the streets of Europe. I have witnessed the appalling, emaciated shadows of human figures. I have seen women and children scavenge army garbage dumps for scraps of fo...
I got into shape because I took kick-boxing lessons every day to prepare for a fight scene with Taylor Lautner. I really wanted to lie down and eat Chinese food, but I kick-boxed every morning and ran. If someone was filming you with your kit off, yo...
It is totally different making films in the East than in the West. In the East, I make my own Jackie Chan films, and it's like my family. Sometimes I pick up the camera because I choreograph all the fighting scenes, even when I'm not fighting. I don'...