I don't want to demonise 'Johnny.' I was really proud of what he achieved. Especially within stand-up. He was quite a unique voice. I will always possibly be trading off 'Johnny's name, but there's a lot more things that I'm able to do now - the strengths that 'Michael' can bring to it.

'Funny People' is my favorite performance of myself to date. Even though it's a comedy and there are serious moments, I really felt like Leo felt like a real person. It didn't feel like I was playing myself. Whether it's a comedy or drama, I just try to make it as realistic as possible.

I think the narcissism comes from the industry side of things. The artistic side of a person is never narcissist; it's always empathic, it's always kind and compassionate. It can be difficult to hold onto artistic principles when the business is so glaringly about the product. It's sad.

Lee Marvin was just the best. Just the best. And that was the beginning of a friendship that lasted until he died. And the same with Ernie Borgnine. You know, I went up there and did that movie [Emperor Of The North] with those guys, and I actually was with Ernie the night that he died.

I was a hockey player, growing up. Being a big guy and being imposing, I had to use my size to protect my teammates. As an actor, I've been all over the map, but since I've moved to Hollywood, people tend to cast me in these more imposing characters, which is actually really fun for me.

It's always the big question in our lives if you have a lot of success. What do you do with it? Buy more houses, buy more cars, buy more stuff, be wealthy and distant and unengaged? Or do you take all that good fortune that has come towards you and spread the love, do something with it?

I spent a long time in art school so I can really draw. I'll doodle and suddenly I'll find the beginning of the movie in one picture. Usually, I start my stuff on the telephone. Right by the telephone I've got a book of doodles. When I'm on the phone, I'll be doing a drawing eventually.

He was very supportive of me, ... He saw every single play I did in New York. Ill never forget looking out into the audience and watching my brother, who was 40 years younger than my grandfather, sleeping in his chair during some of my early plays. My grandfather Alex never fell asleep.

It was never something I had in my mind to do – a show on Nickelodeon, let alone being consider a teen idol. It’s odd. I remember my mom picking up a magazine with me on the cover and saying, ‘You don’t know how weird this is for me.’ I told her, ‘You don’t know how weird it is for me!’

If I had a script that I was ready to shoot tomorrow, I'd work on it every day until we got into production as soon as possible, but I don't have that script yet, so I'm trying to find and support writers, really young writers and hopefully come across a story that I wanna tell one day.

Everybody knows about Peter Jackson, 'The Hobbit' movies and 'The Lord of the Rings' films being made in New Zealand, and to actually have been part of it for such a long period, to live there and to have friends that I will have for life because of that experience, is an amazing thing.

I was a very focused kid. I always had this crazy lifestyle... billions of jobs, two hours of gymnastics every day, handball, anything with a ball, really. I must have had ADHD or something. I was very energetic, and very small. I didn't start growing until the last year of high school.

I've worked over four dozen nine-to-five jobs before taking the chance to chase my dream of wanting to become an actor and filmmaker. Growing up in Brooklyn and Harlem, working at jobs like the bus company were great. I had benefits, a great salary, and security. But it wasn't my dream.

We make up any excuse to preserve myths about people we love, but the reverse is also true; if we dislike an individual we adamantly resist changing our opinion, even when somebody offers proof of his decency, because it's vital to have myths about both the gods and devils in our lives.

I think if you were known for playing something other than being a nice guy then people might be a little less likely to take liberties with you. If you are Ray Winstone, and people have seen you kick a few people to death, then they are a little less likely to approach you or whatever.

I want someone that I can have fun with and laugh with. I love to laugh, and I'm really sarcastic, so it's important that she can take a joke. I think if you are going to be with someone for a while, you really need someone you can let loose with and let go of all the stress of the day.

When I hear people comparing Mike's [Jordan] work to Denzel [Washington] I think it's amazing.. Because Denzel is such an amazing, textured actor. And I think that that comes with Mike too. I'm not thinking about how they look, though; I'm thinking about what they're able to accomplish.

Baseball players tend to have something like 20 good years in them and then around their mid-thirties they aren't in the same shape as the young guys in the league and kind of aren't worth as much. Then they retire before 40. And they are left floating adrift in the middle of the ocean.

I guess Trump is joke-worthy more than ever because he's the president. I think Donald Trump being president is more about where the country is at as opposed to it actually being about Donald Trump. It feels like going to couples therapy and really finding out how your other half feels.

When you're doing comedy constantly, you're organized: you know where everything is, you know how to get out of it, you know how to stretch it. But, like, doing 'SNL,' I stopped doing spots, and then I would finally do some sets - it take me so long to, kind of, get in the rhythm of it.

Honestly, as hard a profession as acting is, I think music is even harder. Acting, you're like a leech, because someone else does the hard part for you. They write it for you, then the director tells you what to do. You really just need to know how to pay attention, follow instructions.

'Smurfs' just seemed like a great way to represent a young father to be, guy in a marriage, work in conflict, and I was really interested in the technical CG side of things. I'd never done a movie that I thought would be so physical and yet so precise. So I was intrigued by all of that.

In, like, seventh or eighth grade every day after school, my friend Andrew and I would watch 'Wayne's World.' And I think it's a great example of a sketch effectively turned into a movie and a story that really works with a good journey. Not easily accomplished, but such a good journey.

n Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

There are actors that are really fine actors but not good auditioners. There are really good auditioners that may not be great actors. There are great actors that are really good auditioners, too. I happen to be someone who's not a great auditioner, but usually on a set can hold my own.

Comedy is inherently subversive because it turns the normal reality on its head. The art form is all about these questions and contradictions. In comedy, we're dealing with language that we all understand, but words can have a dozen other things around them that alter or affect meaning.

For a while, I tried to masquerade as somewhat of a hippie because I was under the impression that was the kind of guy girls would like. I was pretty unsuccessful because I liked the idea of camping more than actually camping. I did go to a Grateful Dead concert, but I was pretty bored.

I was going to go to a midnight screening of 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure' in college, and it's the sort of thing where people dress up. So I got dressed up, and then I got lost. I was speeding, and a cop pulled me over while I was wearing a Pee-wee suit. That's a hard ticket to get out of.

Growing up in the mid-to-late '90s in London, you start seeing the explosion of drum'n'bass and then the birth of U.K. garage and grime. I decided to focus a lot of my energies as an aspiring MC. It was a very natural way to express yourself as a kid from a certain kind of neighborhood.

I think there's a time and place to watch an independent film, or catch up on a French action film on your laptop, or Netflix it, or download it, or watch it on-demand. But I think we also have to maintain the sacredness of the movie theatre as church - especially with event screenings.

If you are using a digital camera specifically for that reason you have in mind from the beginning, then yeah, it'll work. But like if you're just shooting a normal film and just kind of just shooting extra stuff because you can because you've got the memory space, it's a bit pointless.

It's always been strange to me that someone can say they're a vampire fan. I'm not a non-fan, but it's such an unusual thing to be a fan of. That's like saying, "I love zombie movies! I just love 'em! They're my favorite!" That's more of a psychological problem than being an actual fan.

Walking into the great hall for the first time was absolutely incredible - all these effects with all the candles floating in the air, all lit and everything, food on the table, all the flambeaus were lit - it was just incredible, it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life.

I mean, we make a 15-minute show that's incredibly silly, even though all of our scenic designers, puppet builders. animators, everybody that works on the show take their work very seriously. So somebody saying that we'd even be in contention for a very respectable award is really nice.

A lot of the things I was doing on YouTube nobody was doing at the time, and now everybody is doing them, and I think making movies - I know a few Youtubers have done it, and hopefully this movie does well and more YouTubers want to take a risk and make movies, and I'm excited about it.

It's not the coolest thing in the world to be walking around humming the Taylor Swift song. It's not as cool to be singing along with the number one song in the country as it is to be the jaded, indifferent hipster who wants to turn you on to something that nobody else is talking about.

When you meet people that you know from other films - as often happens to me, and as tends to happens to you when you're an actor, you constantly meet people that you've seen in other films. But when it's people who've kind of had a seismic effect on your life, it's quite extraordinary.

My maternal grandma was a tough, tough lady and a stern woman, who lost her husband young and raised six kids by herself. She lived in a mining community in Upstate New York and ran a boarding house for miners. She took care of an entire family and miners who lived in the house as well.

I think I meant that, given the circumstances of my childhood, I had the illusion that it's easier to be alone. To have your relationships be casual and also to pose as a solitary person, because it was more romantic. You know, I was raised on the idea of the ramblin' man and the loner.

I'm very into the military and police stuff. Gear and technical gear is something that's changing every day and every day you're trying to be on the cutting edge and improve your stuff more and more because your life depends on it. And so, the guns and the gears are changing constantly.

The coolest thing about the series is that we stay very true to the books; it would be silly for us not to, because the books are exactly what the fans want to see. There’s an action side to it, which I love, and there are werewolves now. There aren’t just vampires. There’s a wolf pack.

The coolest thing about the series is that we stay very true to the books; it would be silly for us not to, because the books are exactly what the fans want to see. There's an action side to it, which I love, and there are werewolves now. There aren't just vampires. There's a wolf pack.

What shocked me, and what I wasn't prepared for, was just how brutal and how unethical some people can be in the NFL. I mean, there were some great people, but there were some real snakes, too. I was like, 'Holy cow!' But it made me a better person, and it got me ready for other things.

I told everyone I would never be an actor. People used to tell me, 'Hey, you got a good look. You should try.' And I was like, 'Nah. That's not me.' And then, the moment I tried it, I found I loved it more than anything in the world, and that taught me a lesson. That is, just go for it.

'The Stepfather' was the first time I sort of carried a film, or led in a film, and doing it was fun, and I felt very special. Afterwards, though, I was terrified. I just thought, 'Wow, this is basically going to be about me. If this film is a success or a failure, a lot of it's on me!'

Both my daughters are both so unimpressed when they see me on television. I want them to say, 'Oh, Dad!' But I say, 'Who's that?' and they say 'Dad' with no real interest, even if I'm wearing a long wig and riding on a horse! I think I'll have to read a 'CBeebies' bedtime story instead.

I've talked to a number of actors who have gained weight for roles, and just the sheer physical toll it puts on one's knees and shoulders - no one wants to do it again. I'm 57 and I don't think I'm going to take on any job or go on vacation again and see to it that I can gain 30 pounds.

One thing that was amazing about World War II was that everybody signed up for the duration plus six months. Fliers got to leave combat after 25 missions, or 35 missions, but other than that, you were in it. You were part of the great effort, until, oh boy, six months after it was over.

I'm not a technical person, at all, but you get a little bit more of a sense for how to get something done a little bit more efficiently. I think everybody is in that place where it's a little bit more efficient, but the process is still the same, which is still loose and collaborative.

Freud was the son of a Jewish merchant who had to move his whole family to Vienna because he couldn't get work. He, as a boy, had to watch his father be mocked and abused on the street for being Jewish... You develop a thick skin and you develop a certain kind of wit to defend yourself.

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