For a while I thought about studying medicine at school and becoming a doctor because I've always been interested in psychology and how people's minds operate. But I'm able to explore some of that as an actor and ultimately I think it seems more inte...
In orthodox film-making, you never shoot sequentially - but with improv, obviously every move you make has a knock-on effect; it is a cumulative process. I have improvised, on the non-scripted 'Timecode.' It can become entirely indulgent: actors smas...
I'm not so in a rush to direct just anything because I'm lucky that I can make a living so far as an actor and not have to worry about that as a director. And so I can be a little more choosy in things I direct.
The most clear way to decide the actor is to watch them doing stuff during their downtime. When they do something that's making both of you laugh, you see if there's a character or situation that could be written into.
I'm probably an actor that tends to, instead of putting things on, think about it more in terms of taking away what's not in the character, until I'm left with what is. If that makes sense. That's probably a particularly American way of working, but ...
As an actor, I was a fantastic rebel. Then I became a directorial rebel and understood rebels from both sides. So now I am a friend who gives advice - not one who knows more, necessarily, but who shares ideas.
I discovered that I wanted to be an actor back when I did my first play in junior high. I've been doing theater in junior high and high school, and I just kept feeding the fire, kept wanting to pursue acting full-on.
I don't know if there's an actors' slow-pitch softball league I could join. My agency has a team, but they say it would be a conflict of interest for the people they rep to play because I could hit a pop-up and they'd have to drop it on purpose.
I've never done stand-up; I came via small-scale touring theatre, through the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, then I got employed on that as an actor who had a humorous sensibility.
As an actor and a writer, the anxiety about doing TV is that you start to feel like you get married to one tone or one kind of idea and you feel like you want to be able to express a lot of different things.
The popular image that Hollywood is ruined by difficult prima donna actors is nonsense. They're certainly very nice to directors. I can't say the same about producers, who I found difficult, paranoid, and certifiably insane, mostly.
I've been fortunate. I've worked in a lot of things where I had those kinds of experiences with actors who were perceived as very macho guys, everybody from Lee Marvin to Charlie Bronson to Harrison Ford to Robert Shaw.
Well, I always try to look at my characters as being better than I am. That's one of the reasons I guess I became an actor - because you get to create a persona that's bigger or better or more interesting than your own.
I'm a very competitive person, but competitive with myself. I want to be the best that I can be, and if that means that I'm eventually better than everyone else, then so be it. But I don't go around comparing and contrasting myself with other actors ...
I think it's very important to recognize talent in all facets of filmmaking. Making a movie is such a lengthy and intense experience, so it's wonderful to honour actors, directors, producers and all crew members who put so much hard work and passion ...
I did a show back when I was in high school - so I was about 17 - and it was the first time I was on stage. I never even thought about being an actor before that, but after that experience, I knew it was what I wanted to do.
Normally, I love to go to the movies and when I see a character portrayed by different actors at different ages, it kind of pops a little bit for me. It brings me out of the movie experience. Now we have the technology to cure that.
I did use my own accent in a play once. It's a very freeing, liberating experience. Actors are often asked to adopt a different accent, and sometimes a different voice, so when that's taken away and you don't have to think about it, that's a lovely t...
Being an actor means asking people to look at you. I guess I accept that. But it's a profession in which the job is to show another world and other people. You may access it through bits of yourself, and your imagination and experience, but actually,...
I wanted to find something I was passionate about, something with the possibility of upward movement, and I wanted freedom. I need to be outside living life, not stuck in an office. I figured I could either be out selling condos in Miami, or I could ...
You have more creative freedom with writing, in certain ways, because you can create everything that happens. But, as an actor you also have creative freedom because you don't so much focus on what has to move the story along, and only on how your ch...
