I don't feel secure at all. I don't know what actor would feel they've made it. I feel like I'm just starting.
Whenever a critic mentions the salary of an actor, I'm thinking, He's not talking about the movie.
You're a smaller fish in the U.S. There's just so many more TV shows, and actors, and actresses. Where as in the U.K. you're in a much smaller market there.
I was on a well-beaten path of actors - what we all call 'the Law and Order route'. I spent two years of auditioning for everything... and then 'The Wire' came up.
It's interesting - an actor's research is different to just historian's research. I'm looking for things that I can actually physically use in the movie.
I used to comfort myself when I became an actor that it was a useful job, entertaining people. And it was important to do it as well as you possibly can.
I don't any longer make any quality judgement between theater and cinema. They are different experiences for the audience, and they also are for the actors - although they have a lot in common.
There are lots of wonderful actors doing animated films these days, but I prefer it when you can't recognise them - it means they've really become the character.
As an actor, you can do what you want with your role. That's why they hire you; to take the role and make it real.
I only became an actor to get your attention, to challenge the archetype of an African American male; I can't be anything else in this lifetime than an African American man.
If I ask my actors to bare themselves, to reveal themselves as almost naked, I have to bare myself, expose myself as well. That's what creates excitement.
Writers are like actors too. For every story we create, we must get under the skin of the characters and role play with our writing.
It's a tough transition really for theater actors to adjust to television or film, and all of these years later, I still have a tendency to play it too big.
Angelina wanted to make sure that any fighting in the movie would be comparable to any male actor. Everything from stick fighting to horse riding was real to her.
I grind my teeth and keep my thumbs in so tight that I've dislocated them, just not to scream. Sometimes as an actor one is lucky enough to be asked to scream.
Nowadays, in the contract that actors sign, you have to agree that you're going to do a certain amount of publicity-the hard part they don't pay you for.
I don't call myself an actor, I call myself an entertainer, because I don't just do one thing.
I want to do films that challenge me. I want to do what the actors I look up to are doing - the Gary Oldmans and Daniel Day-Lewises.
What I do quite honestly and seriously and not in any way being humble is not as important as what the garbage collector does. People make actors important.
All of them - my father, mother, step-mother, and grandmother - were all wonderful actors and performers and they are an inspiration to me, both in their craft and in their humanity.
When I signed up for Y&R, my actor friends said, 'A daytime soap? It'll kill your career!' Now they'd trade places with me in a heartbeat.
