I played cops and robbers and pirates and all the rest when I was a kid, but I didn't want to grow up and be an actor and play cops and robbers and pirates. I wanted to grow up and be that, be cops and robbers and pirates.
For minority actors, developing our own projects has to be the eventual path. We have a lot of stories to tell and a really unique voice. But none of that is going to be heard as long as we're just the hired hands, acting.
I thought his performance was absolutely wonderful and had said so, but he seemed, as actors quite often are when they first see something, to be disappointed. I think he expected more from the film and himself.
Use people whom you're excited by and who share your excitement... The ideal collaboration is one in which the actor and director are saying to each other, 'I can't believe how lucky we are to be making a movie together.'
Well, I've been in several films including documentaries, but the big blockbuster, I was hired as advisor to the actors, I was trying to make Jesuits out of them.
After 'Radio Flyer,' to this day, every family-oriented script or script with kid actors comes across my desk. That's just Hollywood: you get pigeonholed, and it's both a blessing and a curse, but you live with it.
When you are dealing with something that's crazy, you still want actors to play characters and find the reality of the situation, no matter how absurd the situation is.
As an actor, it's hard to direct because, suddenly, you're not around. The thing which I hate about directing is the waiting game, but you've really got to wait it out and be resilient and keep it going and keep everybody motivated.
I've done so much different stuff, people kinda go, 'Do you live in Islington?' 'Did you used to go to so and so school?' And when I say I'm an actor, they don't believe me!
From this point of view, science - the real game in town - is rhetoric, a series of efforts to persuade relevant social actors that one's manufactured knowledge is a route to a desired form of very objective power.
I'm a working actor so I never really pick a film because of a genre, and I don't really turn them down because of genre. Anything that's unlike the picture I just finished is always more interesting.
With any actor, if you know your character well enough, you'll know pretty much what he would say under any circumstance, or whatever situation might rear its head.
Now and again, an actor will blow my mind by doing something really unexpected, like Mickey Rourke or Christopher Walken - you have absolutely no idea what they're going to do, which is really thrilling to watch.
People attach too much to the idea of being a model, that you can only be a certain way to have done it. You will always be dealing with it. You're an actor who used to be a model who never trained; there are not many directors queuing up.
As an actor, you're always at the service of somebody else's vision. In a play, it's more of the director's vision, and he or she's got their hands on you all the way up to opening night, and if it's a film, there are even more people.
I was pretty new to the Broadway world once I began working in it. I hadn't really grown up being too aware of that many shows or that many actors in shows. I was always obsessed with Judy Garland, though.
Acting is a weird, kind of alienating job because you're in an isolated place. Even if you're working with a lot of other people, you're kind of alienated. Actors say that a lot, and I kind of find that to be true.
My size is an asset to me. People write roles for me. If I was just another blond-haired, brown-eyed, 18-year-old actor, I'd be left unrecognized. People remember me.
One of the things I've learned as a filmmaker is to have some aspect of the movie be something that I admire greatly, whether that's an actor I'm working with, the subject matter, or a book.
I see something that seems like standard fare, that I can imagine any number of actors playing, and I'm generally not interested.
As they say, there are two rules in improv: Never say no, and never ask why. When another actor asks 'Why?' or says no to something you're suggesting, then it's very clear that they're putting the onus on you, because they're not comfortable with it ...
