My brother's an aerospace engineer who works for Boeing, and I started thinking, 'Well, my brother works nine hours a day at his job... What if I worked nine hours a day at being an actor?'
I'm definitely a character actor. I've tried to limit anything with a uniform because I've done it so much. There's a lot more I can offer. It's just getting people to see something else.
Well, when I came to Hollywood, there were three names really of Latin actors, three or four names, maybe five. There was Raul Julia, Edward James Olmos, Andy Garcia, Antonio Banderas, Jimmy Smits. Now there's a lot.
I remember the first film I did, the lead actor would, in between scenes, be reading a newspaper or sleeping and I'd think, 'How can you do that?' But it's so exhausting, you can't be 'on' 12-14 hours a day.
Nuclear apocalypse - who do you need? Actors are probably not top of the list. What can I do for you? I can pretend to be somebody who can grow you some nice crops.
What's fascinating is that when you write a script, it's almost a stream of consciousness. You have an idea that it means something, but you're not always sure what. Then when you get on the set, the actors teach you.
As an audience member, if I go to a film, and I am watching two actors, and they're kissing, and it looks like they don't even want to be kissing, it just takes me out of the film.
Unless you have a long-running series, most actors just go job to job if you're lucky to keep working. You just do a movie or a play or a TV thing, and it's over at some point.
The only actor who I think probably might have possibly taken a swing at me if he could have would be Burt Reynolds. He used to call Roger and me the Bruise Brothers, out of Chicago.
There's no one actor in particular that I want to model my career after, except for the people who have been able to keep their career varied and who choose things that interest them. That opportunity is all I really want.
There are so many actors that I meet that don't act enough. Definitely take class, definitely train - that's the most important thing you do. Build your craft. Become better.
Hardly any actor objects to press. It's a question of it being done in the way they like to see it done, meaning to get down to the serious interview what the profession is so we can reach out to the people to help them get along.
When I came into the acting profession, it was quite hierarchical. You didn't sit at the same table as the leading actor. Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud... these were very, very intimidating and powerful people.
I'm a natural blonde, but my hair has been almost every color you can imagine. As an actor, I like to get into my character as much as I can, and often that starts with the color of my hair.
I never really had that father figure to look up to. I think that's the reason I'm so ambitious. I felt like I wasn't appreciated as a child so I wanted to prove my worth as an adult, as an actor.
But what I did think would be interesting is if we created a fictitious story of our own, and then took these stories that we had collected and assigned them to characters who would be played by actors.
Going after a part in Hollywood is like being a gladiator in ancient Rome. When it comes down to getting a role, you don't have any friends, you're incredibly competitive and any actor who tells you different is lying.
My parents always instilled in me this feeling of wanting to be a normal person. I never moved out to L.A. as a kid and got into that scene and that whole thing that happens to kid actors that's the reason they go off the deep end.
As an actor, all you have is what you know and what you see in other people. The more you know, and the more you've experienced, the more you're able to communicate to other people.
As an actor, there are places you can live, and when I graduated from school, it was either New York or L.A., and I liked the East Coast. That's why I ended up in New York.
I actually envy actors who have a persona: 'This is the way I am. This is the part I play.' And do it over and over and over. To me, that's a lot easier than trying to reinvent yourself every six months.
