If you're lucky enough to work with great actors and creative people, they're always just going to be who they are, so I don't think there's a difference between the Brits and the Americans.
Directors, like actors, get typecast. And because I've had great success with comedy and horror and TV shows, that's basically what I'm kind of offered.
So many Irish actors overplay that modesty because they're afraid people will judge them and say, 'The state of yer man, he thinks he's great,' or whatever.
All you ever really want is a great character and great writing. As an actor, that's the juiciest sandwich you could ever ask for.
As an actor, you know, I love not being pigeonholed, which is great. No one really knows who I am. So that's a positive.
Everyone has their 'Showgirls.' We remember the great films actors have been in, and the rest get forgotten. But occasionally, people like to revisit the ones that get swept aside.
Some people are born gardeners, some are politicians. I was an actor. It took a great deal of pain before I figured that out. I didn't relate to most of it.
You can repeat things because it's on a set and there are actors. But if it's a great moment and you don't capture it, it's rare to get that moment again.
Eventually though, I'd like to have my own production company. Then I could create great opportunities not only for myself, but for other actors as well.
Michael Caine is a movie star, but he's also a great actor. I can't say that about every movie star. It's the concentration he has.
Any actor is happy to be involved with something that's challenging, controversial, and not easily palatable. Things that are too dumbed down or easy to swallow are uninteresting... It's good when people have such a polarizing response.
So I think it's fair to say it's even more of a challenge for some of these actors that are coming up, because there's such a pressure to look good, to be sexy and be palatable to people on whatever level.
I didn't need the insurance. I do it again if my DP tells me it didn't look good in the camera or if the actors didn't hit their marks. But if everything was working why do it again?
In my first film, I was a basketball player. Like every good actor, I lied when they asked me if I could play.
I think a lot of good actors - for instance, Gary Sinise - have no training. His training was really entirely on his feet. I suppose you have to have an instinct for it.
The fact is, as actors, everything we do, bad or good, is a contribution. To me, it is a positive thing to give people as wide a range of human behavior with some sense of understanding of that behavior or some clue to it.
These actors like Danny McBride and Jonah Hill are so good at improvising, and when they do it, it's this fun moment for the audience. It makes them feel like they're watching something fresh and new.
Good actors can sort of see into people and immediately you have a chemistry with them or not. It's like an affair with no mess.
I never had any classes or went to theatre school like a lot of actors, so all of my training has been on stage with different directors. That was a pretty good school room.
I think being a character actor is exciting in that it allows you to embody completely different things, whether it's through wild accents or a crazy bad guy or a drunken good guy.
People are confusing me with a good actor when I'm just a good mimic. When someone asks me to play a nun from the fifteenth century, you'll see what I mean.
