When I was in school, I was always writing scripts and dressing up as characters. I'd constantly be that guy who'd get up on stage. I used to write imaginary TV shows, like soap operas, for fun.
With scripts I've always looked at them and thought about kids, you know? Thought about the world and the impact... I won't do nudity and I never felt comfortable with that whole idea or things with huge sexual content - not my thing.
Robert De Niro taught me how to listen, and how to be part of the conversation. It's not just about reading your lines and saying what's in the script; you have to understand your character, along with the other characters so that you can always resp...
I talked to my agent and said that, basically, I'm the Taylor Lautner of TV. We both have our shirts off a lot. And we have the same agent, so we goof around about it. I'm waiting to open a script and see my shirt on.
I write scripts in storyboard fashion using stick figures, and thought balloons and word balloons and captions. Then I'll write descriptions of what scenes should look like and turn it over to the artist.
It's too bad about 'Dark of the Sun.' It was really about Tshombe. When I read the script, I thought it was going to be a political movie, and I thought we might even have a hassle. But the director simplified it to brutality and bad taste.
The big lesson of Reagan is: To think that he was some sort of simple figurehead and didn't do the thinking and simply read a script in front of him woefully underestimates him. Ronald Reagan was an extremely intelligent person with a real V8 engine ...
I mean, I've sold all these scripts and nothing's been made. Studios have closed, stars have died. I had a director find Jesus. And the pictures just don't get made.
Since I was 12 or 13, I have been taking movie meetings finding a project right for me because I wanted to try it. Craig gave us the script - it was set in Wales, it is really British humour. I just loved it.
The only description for Nolan in the script was that he's a very bad dresser. I put on a red windbreaker and every other ugly, ill-fitting thing I could dig out. He was potentially written as a clean-cut nerd, but I wanted a darker spin.
For the last four or five years, I had been in the position where I didn't have to take a pilot. I took this one because the script and the people were terrific. It never frightened me. As we were doing the pilot, I could tell that it was working.
With film, you read the whole script three or four times, and you really have a solid blueprint of who your character is. Whereas in television, that blueprint is constantly changing and adapting, and sometimes you have to take a risk.
I got a script sent to me at this office and I got a call from a woman - Universal's doing a snowboarding movie. I'm not in it yet, but I'm supposed to meet with the director in New York soon. I'm waiting to hear back from them.
I need to react to a script, to feel strongly about it in some way. And I need it to be a complex character for sure. And also, I think a lot about what kind of audience there is for the film, what they're looking for and ways to connect with them in...
The script of 'Shogun' was so tight that you could not take a word out of a sentence, you could not take a sentence out of a scene, and you certainly couldn't take out a scene without putting ripples right through the back or the front of the overall...
Being the offspring of English teachers is a mixed blessing. When the film star says to you, on the air, 'It was a perfect script for she and I,' inside your head you hear, in the sarcastic voice of your late father, 'Perfect for she, eh? And perfect...
I'm reading scripts just like everybody else. Tin cup in hand, knocking on doors, trying to get a job. It's tough. They don't make as many films these days, and there's a lot of guys that are fighting for jobs.
I hate it when, by page 30, I know what the lead's going to do and then what the bad guy's gonna do. Mostly it's just scripts by the numbers where nothing's surprising, nothing's interesting.
I never went to school for acting; it just comes to me. I never practice. I read the script, I'll memorize it. I don't even practice the acting. I'll just do it the day, and it will just come to me.
When I was sent the script for 'Homeland,' I didn't think anything of it. Three months later, my manager rang and said: 'They are interested in you.' I read it and I realised, 'Yes, I do want this.' Then I got an email saying I'd got it.
I feel lucky, though, because even when 'Alias' was popular, I was still sent scripts against type. I've never felt like the world only sees me one way. But yes, it's been really fun to be bad.
