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Well, you know, with every character, if you're going to expose yourself, you've got to figure out every detail that you're going to play. So there's no character that you can just go put on his shirt and be fully prepared.
For me, it was watching 'Reds' and 'Splendor in the Grass.' To me, 'Splendor' is like the companion piece to 'Rules Don't Apply.' It's set in the time when Warren [Beatty] came to Hollywood, and when he did that first film.
Great acting can be almost a psychotic mix of self-consciousness and unself-consciousness. And thats the terrible conflict. You have to be free to jump off into that volcano and you have to be pathologically self-conscious.
I was in college in Washington, D.C. I did three years full-time. I did all my requirements, and my senior year was really a gut year. And I said, 'Law school will always be there.' I was in no hurry to get right into that.
I like "Training Day" very much. Denzel Washington's performance was spectacular. I also like "The Godfather"and "Kill Bill." I love Tarantino's mind and I believe that "Kill Bill" describes very well his mind and thoughts.
They think America is like a major league in entertainment. For me personally being here for the past year-and-a-half, I know some of the arguments and discrepancies African American actors have with the opportunities here.
A lot of British actors will look at America as such a land of opportunity. In England, there's such a small pool of working actors of color. There's such a small amount of work that is actually produced in the first place.
I'd never been a teacher before, and here I was starting my first day with these eager students. There was a shortage of teachers, and they had been without a math teacher for six months. They were so excited to learn math.
It's important for me to try my hand at philanthropy because I want to leave behind a record of someone who did more than just gobble up stuff for themselves. I realized that a life lived for yourself is not much of a life.
My parents, products of the Great Depression, were successful people, but lived in a state of constant fear that my sister and I, and they, would sink into the kind of economic insecurity that their generation knew so well.
I think you never want to have to go into the scene having to improvise; you want to make sure its working on the page. But I do like to have the ability to try stuff just in the moment, to give it some sort of spontaneity.
50 Cent is a hero to me because he's overcome so many things. He's been shot nine times and lived. I had a cousin got shot once in the ankle. Dead. I had to go to the funeral. I was mad. Man, you ain't hard! You ain't hard!
Parties are only bad when a fight breaks out, when men fight over women or vice versa. Someone takes a fall, an ambulance comes, and the police arrive. If you can avoid those things, pretty much all behaviour is acceptable.
It's not about being proud of Sweden; it's just a sense of belonging. Even if you've lived in a place for a long time, those first formative years are going to be a part of you forever, and it's something you can't replace.
In my standup work, I always do these characters, older people who are just off to the side. It's easier to write a story about the guy who made it to the top, but the middle is so much more interesting, so much more murky.
When I first started, they were trying to get me into sitcoms - I think because I had that kind of Wonder Bread look and my hair always went into place. I kept saying, 'I'm not good at sitcoms. I don't know how to do that.'
When I first got out to Hollywood, they were pushing me for sitcoms, and I didn't really have an interest in them. I wanted to do films and slowly worked that way. And then it became, I guess, this curse of the leading man.
If you could change the neural pathways in your brain so that you could recall everything you've ever heard, taste, smelled or touched, basically from the womb on, and use it at your disposal, that's an interesting concept.
If I become defensive and upset right away, then that's going to adversely affect how I deal with it and it's probably not going to be good press for me and probably be bad just because I'm angry. Just be open and pleasant.
I found myself drawn to the remote Kimberley region of Australia - in the far Northwest corner of the country - our last frontier. I still can't explain why. I kept coming back over many years and started shooting material.
When Ive ridden in parades, I always throw to the kids, the elderly and anyone who is smiling and having a great time. I try to make eye contact with the person. If you catch a ton and a kid nearby hasnt caught much, share.
It doesn't matter if you're good. If you're just good, you won't succeed. If you have patience and persistence and talent and that's it, you will not have a successful career as an actor. The elusive thing you need is luck.
Having done 300 television shows and almost 60 movies, I'm tired of having guys who are younger than some sandwiches I've had, telling me to turn left at the couch. There's no appreciation of actors and no sense of history.
The more deeply connected you are with the people that you're working with, the better the work and the character, and then, I think, that really translates to life. It will help you in life to be more grounded and genuine.
Experiencing so many firsts, maturing as an actor, a professional, and a human. In the process, gaining friends, family, and the best coworkers a very lucky actor could ask for - and for this, I can be nothing but gracious.
I tend to go to bed really early on New Year's Eve. Then I wake up early, drive up while it's still dark, and hike out somewhere beautiful to watch the sunrise. I just take a couple hours and have a post-mortem of the year.
West Orange, where I grew up, is the hometown of Ian Ziering from 'Beverly Hills, 90210,' Scott Wolf from 'Party of Five,' David Cassidy from the 'Partridge Family,' and Mike Pitt of 'Boardwalk Empire' and 'Dawson's Creek.'
I actually find it harder to act in the scenes where there's not much happening, say having a milkshake in the diner. That is far harder to do than straight scenes where there's a drama going on and you have something to do
Woody Allen, when we did Vicky Cristina Barcelona, said to Rebecca Hall, "Do it one time happy, one time sad, and one time indifferent, as I won't know where you should be until I'm editing this, in terms of your emotions."
I've got the best of all worlds. It's every actor's dream to wake up in New York City and go to an acting job rather than to a restaurant to wash dirty dishes. And I live so close to the studios that I ride my bike to work.
I have worried about getting pigeon-holed, but now I think I've done enough weird, offbeat stuff not to be. And I also know that I do things for the right reasons: I've made my money, so I don't have to say yes to anything.
I like to stand in my kitchen with the script on a counter that's about chest high. Usually I do something else at the same time - make a chicken or slice vegetables - and all day long I just read it over and over and over.
I've always felt that if I examine myself too much, I'll find out what I know and don't know, and I'll burst the bubble. I've gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I'd rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.
Tea! thou soft, sober, sage and venerable liquid;- thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wink-tippling cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate.
I always choose to remember the moment that was the best of Jeanne Cooper - those photos where she's in that wild dress triumphantly hoisting up the Emmy the night she finally won the damn thing. She was so proud, so happy.
I'm not averse to earning someone; in fact I'd love to earn some money. But also my choices of movies don't tend to make money but I get to make interesting films. But it doesn't mean I don't want to earn shitloads of cash.
That's why I don't understand why actors become arrogant and are completely unapproachable - because as an actor, the most valuable thing you can do is talk to people and hear their stories, because it'll all come in handy.
I called my mother up and I said, 'You know, I've been to the best doctors in the world and I've spent almost half a million dollars and they're telling me I have symptoms of a P.O.W. and all I did was grow up in your home.
I found myself very lost after 'The Partridge Family,' and I lost my dad and I lost my manager, and I lived in a bubble, and it took me 15 years to get through that and a lot of psychotherapy, and I'm laughing about it now!
Maybe it's because I'm getting older, I'm finding enjoyment in things that stop time. Just the simple act of tasting a glass of wine is its own event. You're not downing a glass of wine in the midst of doing something else.
In what I do for a living, trust and confidence are key. Inevitably, you can't make brave choices and do your best work, if you don't have those, because it's such a subjective art form, and you don't have eyes on yourself.
When I was six years old, my parents took me to this farmers' market with a petting zoo. They put me on a pony and, for some reason, it took off at a run and they had to chase it down. They tell me it was kind of traumatic.
I got hooked to American news like a great TV season. It plays like fiction. I would come home from work, and I would put it on, and I would stay up until 2 in the morning watching it and get up in the morning and watch it.
What I find is that we're all human beings and that it's all very similar, what we believe. At the bottom, there's really not that much difference between Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists. We all worship God.
I learned to surf for 'Soul Surfer.' Surfing is like golf: You're always battling, and it keeps knocking you down. There are a lot of wipeouts. But when you stay with it and catch that wave, you really taste it. It's magic.
I'm a parent. I think we're responsible for the problems that young people have. I believe that. I don't blame them for any of it. I blame us for what we haven't done as mothers and fathers, not sticking together as a unit.
I have two kids who were like me, we get out of bed feeling good, and the other two would sit at the breakfast table and grumble. I think it's born into us. I usually wake up feeling pretty good. Looking forward to the day.
I was a 'Laurel and Hardy' nut. I got to know Laurel at the end of his life, and it was a great thrill for me. He left me his bow tie and derby and told me that if they ever made a movie about him, he'd want me to play him.
People want people to do well. You can get focused on the bitter side of it, like, 'Everybody wants you to fail. Everybody's keeping the door closed to you,' but that's not true at all. Everybody's kind of in the same boat.
The plight of the actor, even if he's a star, is the plight of the women's movement. They're saying the same thing to us: get into bed, give me a good time, then give me something to eat, go get the laundry, be a good girl.