I was mainly a stage actor. I found film acting mechanical, because it was so technical - there was so much technique with the lamps and the movements of the camera.
I would say it wasn't until my fourth season on 'SNL' where people or my agent was saying, 'You're an actor.' I never thought of it that way.
If a movie doesn't even have financing yet, they'll do a table read for it at a casting director's office with actors, for the producer and the writer, just to hear if the movie is working.
When they asked Jack Benny to do something for the Actor's Orphanage - he shot both his parents and moved in.
As an actor, when you go for auditions, there are certain roles that come along and you think, 'I really want that one,' and Prince Arthur was definitely one of those.
Just as actors are afraid of child audiences because they're so honest, I would be scared stiff of going before the big folks.
You hear stories of intense actors who can't shed their character and who don't know who they are for a week or two after. I'm not that guy, man.
In terms of jobs, I'm an actor. There's gotta' be depth there. I'd never say yes to something just to play the hot guy. That's not what I'm interested in.
I trained as a theater actor and you had a bare stage and you had to pretend, one prop and you are in the middle of 8th Ave. and traffic is just going by.
Keats himself spoke about how Shakespeare was capable of erasing himself completely from the characters he had created. As an actor, that is what I'm trying to do.
Sometimes you need to put your own characteristics into the actor, and you take different things from the character that you admire - sometimes you can't see the boundaries anymore.
It's really hard because obviously people label you as a British East Asian actor. And I'm just from Salford; it's where I was born.
When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression.
For an actor to have a role that they're recognized and remembered for over the years, it's unusual. It's very lucky if it happens once - and it's luck that it's happened to me a couple of times.
As an actor, I endeavor to find the reason in the unreasonable. Because no one thinks they are being unreasonable or unrealistic or demanding or behaving madly. We all see ourselves as being justified.
It's so easy to become obsessed with the film industry and recognition that we can forget that we are not saving the world. We are just actors trying to entertain people.
It's often wrong to write for specific actors because one ends up using what is least interesting about them, their mannerisms and habits. I prefer not to write for specific people.
I don't know if I'd say I feel green, but I'm getting to know myself as an actor now in a way that I never did as a kid.
Oftentimes, actors are looked at as court jesters. They are not looked at as deep-thinking, smart people who do many other things or have gifts in other areas.
There's an inordinate amount of attention put on actors. Some people want to make their lives public, but that doesn't mean everybody does.
It's different when you're an actor and playing a part, but when it's just you, you feel immensely vulnerable have strangers prodding and prying.
