If you stood me in a costume next to a computer graphic of the same-looking character, I think there would be a difference. And many movie fans I've spoken to would rather see an actor in a costume than CG.
One of the pleasures of being an actor is quite simply taking a walk in someone else's shoes. And when I look at the roles I've played, I'm kind of amazed at all the wonderful adventures I've had and the different things I've learned.
My background is somewhat unusual, as I trained to be a ballet dancer. I worked in the theatre for eight or nine years as a contemporary dancer. But as an actor one does read Shakespeare and does try to learn the classics.
The most important thing that certainly the United States and other Asian and Pacific actors have done is to urge that whatever happens, however the dispute is resolved, that it be resolved peacefully.
Even when I was little, people would always ask me if I wanted to be a movie star, and I would always say, 'No, I just want to be an actor.'
I didn't set out to be a villain in film. I'm a character actor, and if my first movie was a comedy, I could have played a geek just as well.
I don't know that many Australian actors in Los Angeles, but there are a few of us. I mean, we kind of get together occasionally, but I wouldn't say it's an alliance or anything like that.
I always wanted to be normal. I tried really hard, but it's like I try so hard and then people still say I'm offbeat. I've learnt to accept that and take advantage of it as an actor.
I've never pursued a role. I always hear stories about actors going after parts and I'm, like, 'How do they do that?' It seems so weird. It seems like a total myth or something.
As a comic, it's anti-comedy to be known. I think a lot of comedic actors get lost in this world of Hollywood and all this stuff. They lose what brought them there in the first place. I'm very trepidatious about it.
It's not that I wanted to be an actor; it's that I didn't want to be a dancer! I was trained in traditional Chinese dance, and after working so hard it seemed unfair to just disappear into a group.
Being a director, just to begin with, is just, I think, one of the hardest jobs just because you have to work in every way. You have to work with actors, you have to be involved with the producers and the writing and the action. Every department come...
Writing for the stage is different from writing for a book. You want to write in a way that an actor has material to work with, writing in the first person not the third person, and pulling out the dramatic elements in a bigger way for a stage presen...
I was working in Lexington when I recognized this actor, Michael Shannon, and I was like, 'What do you do?' He told me to get into a theater company, so I got into a theater company near my hometown. I was a carpenter there. And then I slowly got som...
Marlon Brando. The finest actor who ever lived. He was my idol when I was 13. He's done enough work to last two lifetimes. Everything I do, I think: Can Brando play this with me?
When I decided I wanted to go to drama school, I realized that a lot of the actors whose careers I really admire and whose work I really admire were English and English trained. I felt there was a real vocational feel to work in the U.K.
When I was 18 I went to college for two years and didn't work for a year which was essential for me, because my identity had been so influenced by my being an actor and I think I just needed to discover what it was to be myself, divorced from all tha...
Unlike me, a lot of child actors are very short, which is why they work. So when they're 15 they can play 11 or when they're 18 they can play 14. They look young for so long, they have abilities a much younger kid wouldn't have.
The Australian film industry is a small industry, so you have to really be flexible within working in different mediums. A lot of actors work in theater, film, and television, because there's not much opportunity in terms of employment there. So you ...
I think the other honest attraction was that I just grew up loving watching TV and loving watching film, and there's so many directors and actors that I dreamed of working with, I just really wanted to take a crack at it and see if I could ever work ...
I consider myself an actor that tries to have as many tools as possible in the bag. And I think that includes the method, then of course it includes some improv techniques, and includes all kinds of different things, because you never know when you'r...
