A film set is really delicate and people treat you very very well if you're an actor because they want you to be as comfortable as possible for you to do your work, but it really is just one in a team of many and usually 150 people.
What you can do with visual effects is enhance the look of the character, but the actual integrity of the emotional performance and the way the character's facial expressions work, that is what is going to be created on the day with other actors and ...
If you want to be an actor, you should just get out there and do it. I don't go for the approach of first getting photos and an agent. I think you should start with the work, and the other stuff will follow. As with 'opportunity knocks,' you have to ...
If you've ever been around a group of actors, you've noticed, no doubt, that they can talk of nothing else under the sun but acting. It's exactly the same way with baseball players. Your heart must be in your work.
After college, I went to Alley Theatre in Houston to work in their apprentice actor program. I thought I was gonna get discovered. It didn't happen. I moved back to Germantown, Tennessee, outside of Memphis, and taught at my old high school.
I've always drawn, for example, and I did consider when I was younger, it was either do I become an actor or do I become an animator cartoonist at that point. Do I work at Disneyworld or something and do animated cells or something?
As a director, your work is finished only when it's on the screen. But I will always be an actor who occasionally directs. And no, I have no interest in directing myself. I wouldn't be able to concentrate on both jobs at once.
I turned down plenty of films which proved to be hugely successful. And, of course, I've also had plenty of experiences where everyone thought we were doing brilliant work and it ended up pretty horrific. Same as any actor, really.
I have to work really hard, eight shows a week, to get a nice check as an actor. But when I write a play, and it's a - knock wood - hit, the checks come in for many years.
Theatre is relatively easy if you're British - you're living in the theatre capital of the world, London - there are so many places you can work, still. If I had begun to think of myself as a film actor, I think I would have got distracted.
But I'm very happy to work within tight parameters, and when you know you have an actor for two days, and you have to get that work done in two days, that focuses the mind wonderfully.
My advice to new actors is: Don't be lazy. Go after what you desire. Don't heed the commonplace advice that is meant to discourage you. If you want it, go and get it. Be willing to work hard, and be patient. Be kind to yourself.
I start with actors that I know personally or I know their work, and there are things about their work or their presence or their own personality that make a character, that exaggerates some qualities and suppresses other qualities. It's always a rea...
I think that all actors find they go down and then they come back up if you work on your craft. They come back up to the top and then they go back down and they come back up and they go back down.
A lot of actors, whatever movie you're working on, you make up a back story just for your own, to work off, even if the audience doesn't have it revealed to them. I think it's important that the audience makes up their own mind.
Some people say to be an actor you've got to die to do it. I think it's healthy if you think, 'I'll do it if it works, and if I don't, I can do something else.' That way seems to work for me.
I was never an ingenue. I've always just been a character actor. When I was younger, it was a real problem, because I was never pretty enough. It was hard, not just for the lack of work, but because you have to face up to how people are looking at yo...
Fifteen years ago, I suffered a stroke, which caused me to lose my speech. Now, what does an actor who can't talk do? Wait for silent pictures to come back? I work with a speech therapist twice a week.
If you work with big stars, then they become the lead actors. It's not that I don't want to do films with big stars, but I would rather do the films where I get the title roles.
It was a dream come true working with Johnny Depp. He's always been my acting idol. Working with him and watching him work taught me a lot as an actor. He's very down to earth and a lot of fun to hang out with.
When I first tried the American accent, for a moment I thought I could never be an actor because I just could not do it. But then I thought, 'Okay, it'll just be something that I work at until I get it.'
