Unfortunately for critics and audiences alike, I have made several films, and some films with really terrific actors. And I say this at my own peril, but Marion Cotillard is the best actor I've ever worked with.
I figured most of the best actors around 20 years old would all be at drama school, where they're tied up and contractually can't work, so I saw there must be a gap in the market for a young actor like me.
Someone I met years ago explained to me the difference between a personality and an actor, a personality being Eddie Murphy or Roseanne Barr, and an actor being Morgan Freeman and Alfre Woodard or Marlon Brando.
When I was younger I saw a movie called 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Those two actors and that movie was my inspiration to want to be an actor.
I didn't become an actor until I was an old man of 28 or 29. I declared to the world that I was an actor. Nobody heard me, but I did declare it.
I'm very cautious about talking about how actors got where they got, as though there is in fact a plan or a way. There is no plan, there is no way, there's no sure set, there's no handbook, on how to get to be an actor.
I just don't think that I could be the kind of actor I want to be and not be honest with myself. Honesty is very important to me as an actor and as a person. I didn't even think about it.
Most actors will tell you that it takes a while to figure out what you want to be because we just want to do everything we see on TV and don't know that 'actor' is a job yet.
I had to audition as an actor, and I got so tired of doing the same monologues over and over, so I started writing my own, and then I started selling them to other actors.
Every actor's different. It seems to me the older veterans, they don't need to hear as much. But younger actors need a little more feedback, a little more assurance, and that's fine.
I'm not saying that Sam J. Jones was Flash Gordon - there's no such thing. No actor can be the person, that's a bunch of crap. People pay to see an actor be himself, whether he plays Hamlet or whatever.
I don't see myself as a 'black actor,' I'm just Shemar Moore the actor. I'm very proud to be black, but I'm just as much black as I am white.
I feel much more comfortable as a writer than an actor. I feel like I am a much better writer than I am an actor.
I think the world's a little smaller these days. With the Internet and the availability of people, the pool of English speaking actors - not just American actors, but Brits, Australians, New Zealanders, Irish. We're all up for grabs.
Being an actor: that's a pretty big net. That's a big playing field. The Screen Actors' Guild is filled with many, many, many, many people and vastly different careers.
You don't go to Berkeley to become an actor. In fact, I don't think you go to any school to become an actor. You've just sort of got to go out there and act.
And I think that's why I was going to be a musician. I was very rebellious. And I didn't want to be an actor. My father used to say to me you should be an actor if you want to be in the arts.
I don't like that, because there are a lot of people whose works I admire as actors or actresses, or musicians. And you know, I've been a big fan of different musicians or actors.
There are a lot of actors who wish there was a next play, a next musical. As an actor, I guess that's all I can wish for - the next role, the next opportunity.
I've never been one of those actors who has touted myself as a fascinating human being. I had to decide early on whether I was to be an actor or a personality.
Regardless of what level the actor's at, you always learn something. And you can learn something from bad actors as well, who I've also worked with in the past.
