When I was I kid, there were so many different things that I wanted to be. As an actor, I get a chance to be all of those things, at least for a couple of days, which is fun.
If you work in casting, it's sort of not cool to want to act. A lot of people think that casting directors are frustrated actors, but it wasn't true with any of the casting people I knew.
When I realized that if I was an actor, I could be any character I wanted instead of just one particular, I was like, 'Wow, that's cool.'
We have newsreaders behaving like actors, lowering their voices if it's a sad story, as if we didn't know it's a sad story. There isn't a single cool newsreader.
It's really hard for actors to cross over and get any respect as a singer, and if I could just keep it separate and not use my music in movies, it's cool.
When not much is happening and there seems to be nothing you can do to change that, you do wonder. But I am an actor, like it or not. I stuck with it and took what was offered.
I'd have to fight for an Australian role over an American actor, and I already have to do that overseas, so why would I have to do it back at home?
I feel an obligation to set the record straight. Actors that say they're affected by something, that it changes their life, that they take it home with them, they're just trying to get nominated for an Oscar!
I hope Hong Kong and Asia wants to hire American Asian actresses as much as Hollywood has been hiring Chinese actors from Asia.
As an actor, you hope to find roles that are challenging to you as an artist. Then if you are truly blessed, you will find that it also carries a message that you can impart to your audience.
The job of an actor is the same in all of them, really. I mean, you're just creating a character that you hope people will believe, so it doesn't make that much of a difference really.
People need to realise what real happiness and success is, because success as an actor is fleeting. You can be up there one day and gone the next.
Sometimes an actor will stumble on the joke, and I'm right on them. Back it up before the audience hears the bad version of the joke, because humor is 90% surprise. If they know what's coming, they won't laugh as hard.
When I was in New York, I was making a living. We had a summer house and a car that I could put in a garage. That's something for a stage actor.
I remember running up to my dad and saying, 'I want to be an actor when I grow up!' And him saying, 'Yeah, well we'll talk about it.'
My mom and dad were actors when they were younger and had a horrible experience of it. My dad became a literary agent and my mom a casting director.
My dad always said there's four phases in an actor/director's life. There's 'Mario Who?' There's 'Get me Mario!' 'Get me a young Mario,' and 'Mario Who?'
I'm an actor. I was trained by Stella Adler, one of the greatest teachers of the world. I was 19 years old, and she frightened me to death. I was her houseboy for a while.
Every young male actor dreams of being James Bond in an action movie. And that's their first role. But the truth is, when it comes down to it, that's not relatable.
My mother is a professor of early childhood education. When I was two she would say she knew I was going to be an actor.
I think of myself as a journeyman actor. I've got some talent and I work hard, but people like Brando or Pacino - those people are touched by God.
