Why do writers write? Why do actors act? Why do painters paint? It doesn't pay much, unless you're very successful. It's who we are.
I didn't feel like going any further in this scene with the boy. He was not a professional actor, and if I had pushed the scene any further it would have destroyed the tone of the movie.
I offer my performance as prayer for someone I've worked with as an actor or someone who has died. The image that comes into my head as I walk to the stage, I offer that performance up for that person.
I think knowing where you can generally fit is important, but the fun thing about being an actor is sometimes stretching beyond that stereotype and stretching beyond the box that people put you in.
I seem to have a soft spot in my heart for Australia and Australian actors. After having worked with one in 'Cinderella' and a multitude of them in 'Cats,' I've wanted the opportunity to actually perform 'down under.'
When actors are comfortable enough, and you release all your inhibitions, and you stop judging yourself, you're suddenly so supportive that it's this wonderful team cheering each other on.
Dancers have always been a kind of background image, we've always danced behind an artist or we've danced in a movie behind the actors. We've always been very secondary.
Actors need bricks to play with, and in fact we rejected all the improvised fragments we had made without a plan. Improvisation without a plan is like tennis without tennis balls.
Other actors don't get asked about their brothers or sisters, so why do I have to always answer questions about having a twin brother? I suppose it's interesting for everybody other than me.
I'd always envied actors who got to play real people or got to do research. I've always just had these scripts where, I mean not in a bad way, but it was right on the page.
Actors are a lot like professors on dissertation committees - it's a lot of ego, a lot of rallying for position, there is a lot at stake in every single interaction.
Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in 'Transformers.' I like to think that I've had some luck in building actors' careers with my films.
The Hollywood model is to develop scripts for 10 years, sell them, transfer them, attach this actor, then attach a director. This isn't what I'm about. I'm much more of a creator and a doer.
I'm unable to do the thing that Broadway actors do in plays, sometimes for years. The same exact blocking, the same exact lines. I'm a little bit uncomfortable with that. Every night I'm looking for ways to try something else.
Film, theater and television always kind of scared me. I don't ever seriously think of myself as an actor at all, and I don't plan any film career or television career.
I could have gone the route of a lot of these former child actors, but I didn't want that for myself. Like I said, when I was 14 years old, I decided to quit. I didn't ever want to do it again.
Let me put it this way: If you're sitting in a movie and you're watching me, and you say, 'Isn't that Michael Caine a wonderful actor?' then I've failed.
I much prefer the company of the crew, the sort of 'blue-collar working person.' I much more have that sensibility than what the public perceives as what a typical actor would have.
I like to take chances. The actors I admire are the ones who aren't afraid to make themselves nasty, bad or even goofy. I've never shied away from controversial characters.
I think every actor has their list of roles that were near misses. I've had my share. I was very close and almost cast in Philip Seymour Hoffman's 'Capote.'
Being an actor is just like being any other sort of self-employed person - we're all just happy to have a job in the first place, but we also thrive off the uncertainty of it.
