Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Every role you play is literally - and I've said this before - every single role that you play, the only way you can connect to that character is because that was a piece of you that was scattered around that yard, almost like we got caught up in some whirlwind
I'm not a big prank guy, because I don't like them done to me. I've been on movies sets where one guys goes into his trailer, and then people move the stairs, and he comes out of his trailer, and there's no stairs. That's not funny! I don't want to be that guy!
I was thinking recently, I've always loved the ocean. If I could do it all again, I might do an oceanography degree. You can do ocean archaeology, and I thought that might be fascinating to do - man-made structures, where the sea has risen above the structures.
With YouTube streaming and Twitch and all that, you can just hop on on any given night and play videogames and have people come watch you. And even if you've only got 400 people watching your stream, that's more people than would see my comedy if I went to UCB.
I'm fairly competant as a director and actor, but I am Mr. Neurotic as a writer. I just don't have enough confidence in my abilities to take criticism well. I take it personally. Start with 'It's a masterpiece,' and then tell me what you think could be changed.
I was cursed with age, really. You do that stupid thing at 12 years old when you say something and it kind of sticks with you for the rest of your life. So, I believe I said I wanted to be a fishery manager. In hindsight, I think acting could be a better route.
I found myself trying to work within the Los Angeles system. I had an agent and a manager, which I still do, and going to meetings with networks about game shows and reality shows and projects that weren't mine. It was fun, but it wasn't what I'd set out to do.
I always wanted to see what America was like. I had that curiosity in my 20s when I was working in the theatre here [ in London]... there was the mystery of LA and I wondered what happened over there. I wanted to go and check it out and I'm pleased that I have.
My idea in terms of managing a narrative, or in thinking in my creative life, is that you could easily argue that the past, the present and the future all occur simultaneously, and if you can postulate that, then you're not strictly bound to a linear narrative.
My mother was truly my saving grace, because she would take me to church with her. I would see my mother smiling in the choir, and I wanted to know this God that made her so happy. If I had not had that faith in my life, I don't know where I would be right now.
In 'Hell Ride,' I play a biker - it's about the bikers. It's with Dennis Hopper and Michael Madsen, Larry Bishop and myself. We're bikers, and I play Billy Wings; I've got all sorts of wings, and you have to watch the movie to find out what the wings are about.
I'm starting to be a lot more comfortable with allowing people to decide for themselves and almost creating a situation that forces people to decide for themselves whether they like it or don't like it or agree with the character or disagree with the character.
Clearly, there are a thousand and one scenarios for how someone can slip through the cracks. I'll walk down the street and see a homeless person, and I'll want to stop them and say, How did this happen? Where's your mother? Are you physically ill? Mentally ill?
I have had so many great moments, but I would have to say that dancing the Swan in 'Swan Lake' was such a unique and passionate experience for me. It was such bloody hard work, even at that very early age, that I would not want to try to replicate it again now.
A revolution was never fought, throughout history, for ideals. Revolutions were fought for much more concrete things: food, clothes, housing, and to relieve intolerable oppression. … I know of no one, outside of Patrick Henry, willing to die for an abstraction.
A word of advice: If you get the choice between the upper and lower bunks in a cell, choose the lower. Prisons do not turn off their lights at night, and I spent a sleepless night, without a mattress, with a five-hundred-watt bulb shining directly into my eyes.
Heroes and Star Trek were 2006 and 2007, and I was just about to turn 30, and everything changed. I found myself on this amazing journey, which continues, but it's now at a natural transition point. I'm reevaluating and reexamining how and where I go from here.
I was born in Mumbai, but I grew up in England, and then my adulthood has been in the States. I'm an American stuffed with an English person with an Indian person inside. I feel like those things kind of inform me in some way, which I think helps me as an actor.
Once you lose your parents, you get this numbness, this feeling of having to really be able to connect yourself with someone. I depended on my brothers for that connection, but to have that feeling of being taken care of... I lost it when my parents passed away.
There was a year between school and getting going as an actor when I basically just watched films. Video shops were the new thing, and there was a good one round the corner and me and my brother just watched everything, from the horror to the European art-house.
A lot of people are afraid of the idea of enslavement, and that's because it's tied to so much shame and guilt... That is the big elephant in the room, but a part of why we're afraid to attack that subject matter is because of the way we've been taught about it.
It's hard to really get that excited about movies. Think about it like this: how many good comedy movies come out a year? Maybe one or two? And then, in those movies, what are the chances that there's a character that I'm the best fit to play? It's really small!
I didn't do anything for two years but work on 'Gone Baby Gone,' and it was miserable and hard, but at the end? It is a good movie. I liked it very much. If it had been dismissed and deemed worthless, it would been definitely devastating. But that didn't happen.
When some people get parts, they feel they can now relax, but for me it was always the opposite. Sometimes before I do a movie or before I act out a scene, I may not sleep well the night before. If I don't know what the scene is about, I might get all worked up.
On a national level there is a tendency to portray Latino culture as a monolithic entity, which is a really inaccurate way of seeing ourselves. There is as much diversity and uniqueness within the Latino culture as there is in any other kind of American culture.
I got invited to the Playboy Mansion with the Lonely Island guys after their first season on 'SNL,' and I sat in the corner drinking coffee and talking to Akiva Schaffer about what aspect ratio he was going to shoot 'Hot Rod' in. Like, that's what we talk about.
Anyway, in the mid 80's I was spending a fortune buying old Golden Age books from the late 30's and 40's and I was making personal appearances at a lot of sci fi and comic book conventions all around the country here so that I could find books for my collection.
My first 'SNL' episode was with Michael Phelps and Lil Wayne. And if you go back and watch the monologue - it was supposed to feature Barack Obama, but we couldn't get him - it was with William Shatner. But if you watch it, Guy Fieri is sitting in the front row.
When I started acting, I made a conscious decision that I wanted to be a character read and not a leading man. I didn't want to do the same thing again and again. I wanted to push and challenge myself. I find and embrace new and unique challenges in all mediums.
My family's business was actually an amusement park in New Orleans. My grandfather had started that, and my grandmother was a dance maven in New Orleans. It was just the theatricality and the Mardi Gras and the pageantry that I fell in love with at an early age.
I find that the majority of the year, I don't spend acting. I spend it either writing or editing or producing, or putting things together. So it's as shocking as it is tragic. I really enjoy it. It's a valuable skill set. I certainly feel like more of a grownup.
I got a film fairly quickly and felt like I was on a roll. I would walk into auditions sounding like Crocodile Dundee, thinking, 'This is going to be a novelty for them.' Then I realised that there are a million other Australians here, and I should just shut up.
You either decide to take the easy way out, which means you're only going to disappoint yourself and everybody else, or you take the risk right now of being a fool, which is the only way you'll end up being exhilarated later on when you actually watch the movie.
Let me tell you something: if you're on an island for three and a half months and you're four and a half hours by boat from the nearest store, and there's nobody but 30 crew members on the island, I guarantee that you'd be running around without your clothes on.
Everyone talks about reality TV and that there are no roles left. That's false. Years ago, there were three networks. Now there are 20 cable networks and so many ways for films to be exhibited. It's an exciting time for actors, writers, directors, and producers.
You can make bad writing 'OK,' but... you really need to start with a good script and with characters that are three-dimensional and with great dialogue. It's a difficult lesson to learn because good writing is hard to come by, but it's definitely worth chasing.
I've done seven movies in eight years, and with each movie I feel like I'm learning a lot. I'm still young-ish, so I still feel like I'm in the zone of learning and creating. Those are the perfect places to do that. And in a weird way, you have a lot of freedom.
We would choreograph [ with Paul Dano] before each scene [in Swiss Army Man] and very quickly got to a place where we could improvise physically in scene and know that the other person would respond in character appropriately. So that [dynamic] was a lot of fun.
I don't think there's a way to replace Stabler. The most I could hope for is to come and try and develop a character who is interesting, who is interesting to me, who is interesting to fans and who could contribute to the storytelling that is 'Law & Order: SVU.'
The Josh Brolin character in that movie [Hail, Caesar!], he's given a choice to leave, to do something where he wouldn't have to work as hard. And he'd rather work and deal with the madness of what he's doing because it thrills him, because it gives him meaning.
What I try to do with my career as an actor is what I've learned in the theater: I am rigorous with myself as to whether I'm telling the truth, and I try to surround myself with filmmakers and content creators who are also interested in the pursuit of the truth.
I can't try to convert anybody. It's not in me to do that. But my faith has given me such an appreciation of people and meaningful relationships, and a world view which I didn't have before. And although I will fail every day, it gives me something to aspire to.
I didn't see an abstract painting until I was 18, when I went to Vincent Price's house and saw Richard Niebencorn, Wolff, Jackson Pollack. He had an amazing collection. I didn't know people painted abstractly, I thought I was just doing something wholeheartedly.
The life of Cesar Chavez is a story that must be told. He was a man who dedicated his life to accomplishing change in a community that really needed it. He helped a community that was being poorly treated by instilling confidence and providing them with dignity.
I think there are a number of things that you can do to encourage your kids' dreams but I do believe in speaking by experience of having a lot of help along the way, stumbling in the past. We've all stumbled and we certainly all deserve to get up and walk again.
New York had a big influence on me growing up, and I was really part of the club scene - the Mudd Club and Studio 54. When you're living in New York, you are just bombarded with style, trying to figure out how to be cool and how to feel relaxed at the same time.
I'll always be reading a good book. I don't have, like, specific genre tastes or anything or things that I kind of get hooked on, reading genre books or anything like that. It's just really anything anyone kind of recommends or is going around or I hear is good.
I'd definitely say I end up being more attracted to darker roles. Probably because I like darker movies and plus, just as an actor, I think it's always more fun to play the darker roles where you get to stretch your arms a little bit more. It's like therapeutic.
I've always had a sense of groundedness as a person. I think that's helped me. My mother sort of beat into me the notion of humility, and I think my focus has always been on the right things or the things that I'm passionate about, which is just simply the work.
There's a real purity in New Zealand that doesn't exist in the states. It's actually not an easy thing to find in our world anymore. It's a unique place because it is so far away from the rest of the world. There is a sense of isolation and also being protected.