As a kid growing up in a small town in Washington State, my only exposure to New York City was through movies. The town with its towering skyscrapers, fascinating people and teeming energy absolutely captivated me.
I always shoot my movies with score as certainly part of the dialogue. Music is dialogue. People don't think about it that way, but music is actually dialogue. And sometimes music is the final, finished, additional dialogue. Music can be one of the f...
Because I was a kid from north of England, the only films I had access to was not alternative cinema, which in those days would be foreign cinema; I would be looking at all the Hollywood movies that arrived at my High Street.
Scaring someone's the hardest thing to do, and that's why most of these scary movies are not scary. They're sick, but not scary. There's a lot of sickness out there, of people who then sit there and watch it, which I think is absolutely dismaying.
I'm one of those weird people that tends to not do the extras and listen to the commentaries and stuff on movies, although I do think they are fascinating and interesting - I'm just so worried that years later I wouldn't remember anything!
I suppose when I was a kid, and I went to movies, and later went to some plays on my own when I got a little older, in New Orleans, where I was living then, I zeroed in on the actor.
What you have with the Bond movies is this character gliding over everything. The fact nothing touches him is why we all want to be him. But it also makes him a sort of superman who in the end you don't really relate to.
I get inspired when I look at Tom Lennon, who did 'Reno 911!' for six seasons while writing huge movies and directing and also doing other pilots; he did that FX pilot, the 'Star Trek' thing.
I'm gonna see 'Mission Impossible' Part 9 because I like Tom Cruise movies! But just because the box office has that one receipt from the ticket I purchased, doesn't mean it represents someone who liked it.
In the past, I had a knee-jerk approach to work, and it showed on screen. I was doing movies for the wrong reasons - trying to juggle dates, do too many guest appearances, take up projects under pressure or for emotional reasons.
When I was a kid, I was really into 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and 'Friday the 13th.' But as I got older and started working as an actor, I did not really get scared by horror movies as much, so I am not as into them anymore.
I loved old black and white movies, especially the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals. I loved everything about them - the songs, the music, the romance and the spectacle. They were real class and I knew that I wanted to be in that world.
I was a scared kid... I think I was born a nervous wreck, and I think movies were one way to find a way transferring my own private horrors to everyone else's lives. It was less of an escape and more of an exorcism.
Being sensitive to the problem of women is just another symptom of the quality of movies: I don't think you can do anything that's very sensitive. Everything's sort of broad strokes and big gestures - adventure things that boys, guys want to see.
The nature of the movies is different than it was five years ago, and they're all driven by the possibilities of CGI, which means you can make anything happen on screen that you can possibly desire.
After doing a bunch of movies as a stuntman, I realized that being a stuntman, you are in the shadow of the actor, and they don't get to see your true ability, and I wanted people to see that it was really me doing those stunts, and it was really my ...
It's always uncomfortable for me when I take off my shirt. No one else is taking their shift off. Why is everyone else in these movies bundled up in layers of clothing and I'm taking my clothes off all the time?
I've had lots of parts in movies that I've never seen. I mean no disrespect to them. It was really fun to go act, but I'm not calling my friends and saying, 'I couldn't be more proud of this picture. You should go see it.'
I really want to meet and work with JJ Abrams. Everyone talks about what a nice director he is, and he has kids and stuff, so he sounds really awesome, not to mention he makes awesome movies.
I hate stories in which a person has an occupation and you never see him working at it, like all those marvelous Cary Grant movies where he's a surgeon, and you never see him in the operating room.
I did direct two short movies. I learned many things, and one of the things I learned was that I am not a director. It has to be visceral, and it's not for me. I feel much more comfortable acting.
