My girlfriend tells me if I'm doing a movie I'm a roller coaster of emotions all the time, but on 'Boardwalk,' because I've done it for so long and I'm so in tune with the character, she says I'm pretty happy most of the time.
I've been on projects before where there's no rehearsal, and you walk in on set and that's literally the first time you've ever played the character, and then I've had times where there's been three weeks of rehearsal. I like both.
Each of my novels features a protagonist undertaking a difficult personal journey. On the way, each of these characters - mostly female - discovers something about herself and at the same time makes an impact on other people's lives.
I recurred on 'Grey's Anatomy' for three years, and at the same time, I recurred for eight episodes on 'Rescue Me'. And I'd recurred for nine episodes on 'The Practice'. Frankly, the guest star is often the most compelling character.
I've always set my stories in places I know well. It frees me up to spend more imaginative time on the characters if I'm not worrying about the logistics.
I think in this movie, every time I see his work, I'm blown away by it because he, to me, he really embodied the character so powerfully and so real, so truthfully to me.
I just always gravitate toward the kind of characters or people that maybe you don't want to talk to for a long time at a party, but you do like to watch what they're doing.
It's a tough case and the first time Reacher needs to recruit somebody to help him out. He uses a woman he knew in the army she's a fascinating character.
When you play the same character for a long time, you have a shorthand. You get onto the set, you put on your outfit and two-thirds of your work is done because you've built on that work for so many years.
A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense.
It's always difficult to say goodbye, especially when one has spent a long time - literally years, in the case of a series - inside a character or two, suffering and celebrating with them.
A lot of times I think the cast members, the lead characters in a show really set the tone for the show. On some shows, the stars of the show will just be whining and complaining and spending the whole time texting their boyfriends on their Blackberr...
Mini-series are my favorite medium to act in because it's the right amount of pages you shoot a day, it's the right amount of time that you're with a character, and they really advertise it a lot so that people get excited for this epic event.
I want to spend my time exploring the characters we've already got here. I want to give them more time to shine before the team gets to have 400 members.
When you have an idea for a story, you want those characters to reach as many people as you can. I think you normally think of prose as a way of doing that. It fits our time, the culture.
A different script calls for different things. It always takes me a long time to get to know the part, and know the logic behind the words. I have to be with the script for quite a long time before things start to fall into place, before they become ...
And I'd like to believe that's true, you know, kind of showing gay people in this kind of light and - where it's not about that, it's just about the characters for the first time, like those shows were.
Most of the time, I get auditions for deaf characters where the scene has them communicating in really convoluted ways, like reading lips from across the room when the other person's back is turned or having other people parrot what they say.
But at the same time, the commonplace statement about them is true: every character is the hero of his own story. Each has a justification for his actions that is convincing to him. It's fun to give these people voices.
Offers come all the time, but I'm pretty particular. I really have to be wowed by a character I encounter in a script, or a storyline. I really do need to feel inspiration, otherwise I'm just happy planting perennials and making goat cheese.
And I have to credit David Jacobs with the opportunities he gave me. He was totally into sharing the creation of characters. David put together a show that told the story of people over many years' time and that was greatly enjoyable. Though nowadays...
