Earlier, I used to charge territories instead of my fees as an actor, but I realised it was better to keep the two apart. Now, I take my fees in cash, for acting, and keep the distribution thing separate.
Sometimes you do complete run-throughs of scenes, sometimes you break scenes down into little bits. It just depends on what the actors like to do. It's almost like jamming.
It's something that I think I'm going to have to fight against for most of my career, for people to take me seriously as an actor as opposed to a good-looking guy. It's not what I want to be known as.
I knew going in that being a single parent would be one of the toughest jobs I'd ever have. I'd been a talk-show host, actor, comic, and on and on, but this gig was going to be my defining moment.
Wong Kar Wai is a very intense character, very personable, and I believe in general he does not like and he would not want his actors to show their true looks and their true personality on screen.
Not taboo - it's just that straight actors still risk their careers commercially and economically. They have to please the crowd - they're movie stars; their image is their industry. It goes beyond acting.
I've always been terrified about being bored. I always think being bored is the worst thing. The only strategic decision I ever made as an actor was to try and make each job as different as possible.
I think you have to be very secure as an actor to escape yourself - to revisit someone's past, whether you're portraying another person or creating someone, and then to come back to who you are and not bring those emotions with you.
I can totally understand why people say: 'I'm going to do this T.V. series so that I can buy a flat'. But you've got to see what's of value to you as an actor.
For film and games, there is now a fantastic method of actors portraying characters which don't necessarily look like themselves. And yet you've still got the heart and soul of the performance.
The fact of the matter is that an actor, if I'm playing a performance capture role and you're playing a live action role and we're having a scene together, there's no difference in our acting processes.
When I'm working on the scripts or working with the other actors or rehearsing with the director, and when the director is cutting the movie, and we've shot the scene, the director is not looking at the visual effects.
Dustin Hoffman was the greatest. He had so much information to give and he mesmerized me. He really feels for actors who are just starting out and remembers his early days like they were yesterday.
I suddenly realized that comedy, for me, was just being honest, and playing it for real. I've seen so many wonderful actors who turn into creatures from another planet when they're told they are supposed to be playing comedy.
Every single director-actor I talked to, from Warren Beatty to Clint Eastwood to George Clooney, said the biggest mistake they made is not shooting enough footage of themselves.
Having secured my Indian actors, I started for Baltimore, where I organized my combination, and which was the largest troupe I had yet had on the road.
It's difficult because nothing's preordained by plan and you can't control it. That's one of those joys and thrills and nerve-racking realities of being an actor. A lot has to do with luck, no matter what your talent or contribution can be.
I was a film-directing major at NYU. I'm still not sure why I became a directing major, when I was really an actor and a comedian, but there was something that drew me to doing that.
When I showed up at UH, my hair was past my waist. I had a goatee. I wasn't a theater geek; I wasn't an actor. But Cecil Pickett molded me and taught me.
I think I must be the only British actor who's played both Stalin and Trotsky. I need to play Lenin so I can make it a triptych.
Psychoanalysis. Almost went three times - almost. Then I decided what was peculiar about me was probably what made me successful. I've seen some very talented actors go into analysis and really lose it.
