Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In the circle of light on the state in the midst of darkness, you have the sensation of being entirely alone... This is called solitude in public... During a performance, before an audience of thousands, you can always enclose yourself in this circle, like a snail in its shell... You can carry it wherever you go.
'Christian Mingle' is about a young, modern, single woman. She's trying to achieve it all - a successful career, amazing friends, and finding Mr. Right. She stumbles into the world of online dating looking for an instant 'soul mate solution,' but ultimately ends up taking a personal journey transforming her life.
Sometimes you're encouraged, and other times disappointed. It's a matter of going in and precluding all that with, 'This is what I do, not who I am.' I need to be who I am in the process of doing what I do. I need to stay true to what it is I'm really here for. And that's the hardest thing, the biggest challenge.
At 13, in my first year of Tonbridge, I went up for the part of Macbeth. I was up against the 17- and 18-year-olds, but for some reason I got the part. It made me incredibly unpopular with my peers, but it was the English and drama teachers who stepped in to save me when others wanted me kicked out of the school.
I think, as an actor, and particularly if you are playing the lead in something, you have to view yourself as the head of department for the cast. All of the other departments are accountable and have somebody at the helm who is leading them all the time, and I don't think that the actors should be any different.
Culturally, I have always been part of the proletariat. I lived side by side with the sons of glassblowers, fishermen and smugglers. The stories they told were shaper satires about the hypocrisy of authority and the middle classes, the two-facedness of teachers and lawyers and politicians. I was born politicized.
Chemistry is really about two people who like to act together, I think. It's like tennis in the most cliched way. It's like if you hit the ball, they hit the ball back, and they don't hit it into the stands, and they don't put the ball in their pocket and walk off - and they don't argue with the umpire, you know?
If you look at your companies, and half of your staff are not female, and a decent percentage of them are not people of color, then you are part of the problem because you need people working for you and you need people in positions of leadership who can exercise their bias and who can exercise their perspective.
The live audience, just getting an instant reaction off of an audience is the best part[of the show]. Being in the studio and working on your songs and listening to them back and doing all that - it's a lot of fun, but having that instant reaction and being able to work and vibe with an audience is the best part.
As an editor, you're constantly dealing with the best way to convey an exchange between two people. So when I'm shooting that, I'm just aware in the back of my head what an editor might want. And also, the problems editors run into when trying to edit performances - it helps me head that off at the pass a little.
I grew up with it. As a young actor, I was always aware of the brilliant work of Shakespeare. We studied Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth in school. As a young actor, you're always mystified and intrigued by such brilliant work. To actually have the chance to be involved in this production was a wonderful thing for me.
Making 'Birdsong,' on the one hand you have how prestigious it is and the reputation of the book, which is something that's an extraordinary piece of work. Sebastian Faulkes is a genius. So you feel that responsibility when you're portraying that character that he's imagined and millions of readers have pictured.
On so many levels, acting in film and TV is so much the sum of its parts, and somewhere in there, there's an alchemical thing that makes something happen or not - that makes something connect or not. Now, of course you want to make work that people see, but the enjoyment I get out of acting is playing characters.
Imagine stepping into the shoes of Roberto Duran, one of the most legendary boxers in the history of the sport, and definitely the most legendary Latin American boxer, and then having 'Raging Bull' in my corner. I mean, imagine that? Just having Robert De Niro to play the trainer in the movie, that was fantastic.
If I'm playing music in front of people, I'll lose days to nerves like really wasted days of just like being terrified. And then when I get out there, generally speaking, I enjoy it very much. But it seems to be I have to accept the fact that that's just part of the deal for me. And I can't just run on and do it.
I wasn't really that good at being a musician. And then I tried being a standup. I was an actor. I was a photographer. I tried everything. Nothing was particularly working for me, but then, as a musician, I wrote jokes for comics. And they started to buy my jokes, and that's where I thought maybe that might work.
The University of Southern California has a wonderful social work department, and I was thrilled to find out that they have a whole veterans' initiative program there. They approached me, and I set up a scholarship that would go to a military-oriented person to learn techniques and skills to better help veterans.
The Patriot Act is certainly a concern; all of those things are dangerous. I think more important than me preaching is that we as a nation have to have the debate. I don't know what the answers are. I just know that if the idea is to say talking about it makes you unpatriotic, I've got to call your bluff on that.
I'm tired of playing people who are complete washouts and bums. I don't mind waiting for the good ones to come along. It's like age. It's never bothered me. I've even forgot my birthday. Many times I've wondered if I should tell my real age, but now I think it's an honor, to be doing what I'm doing now at my age.
I think good-looking people seldom make good television. And American television studios almost concede before they start: 'Well, it won't be good, but at least it'll be good-looking. We'll have nice-looking girls in tight shirts with F.B.I. badges and fit-looking guys with lots of hair gel vaulting over things.'
My mother dedicated over fifty years of her life to the nursing profession, giving selflessly of her time, energy, and passion for the benefit of others. I always marvel at what an indelible and honorable contribution she has made and hope to be able to make a similar impact over the course of my life and career.
My big break was really Liz Meriwether saw me in a movie called 'Paper Heart' and really liked it, and then saw me in a movie called 'Ceremony' because she knew Max Winkler and said, 'I want you to be in 'No Strings Attached,' but you gotta audition for it.' From that it was easier for her to get me in 'New Girl.
You know, what I didn't know was how many people in the tech world the original movie had such an impression on. That's really interesting to me because a lot of the people who created this technological revolution that we're all living through were kids when Tron came out, and they saw Tron and it impacted them.
I think faith helps me a lot. God wants you to be where He wants you to be, and that's where I want to be. If I do not get a part, I understand that maybe I needed to be home at that time, maybe in school; there's always a reason. My faith is also where my core friends are, at my church, a faith-based friendship.
Filmmaking, at the end of the day, is really - in addition to the story and all of the equipment and the actors, it's really about time management. And so the smartest filmmakers are the ones who sort of pre-visualize the film in their head and are literally shooting the shots they need to cut the story together.
This is a universal, unique movie, it has potential to cross barriers. But we never thought about that on set, when we were doing the film. We knew that in making a silent movie, we were doing something a little bit under the wire, a bit interdit. It's a pastiche, but for the French taste, you would have thought.
I've always played music and I've always been in bands and there have been periods in my life where the music has taken a much more front row seat than any acting. For a big period of time the acting work was really a way of raising money to fund my music. And then that all sort of changed around and that's fine.
For a while, I was saying 'no' way too often. I turned down 'An Officer and A Gentleman,' 'Splash' and 'Midnight Express.' I could name you tons more. I would go off and experience life instead of working - I was learning to fly jets, went on an African safari, sailed the Caribbean - which wasn't necessarily bad.
Things go wrong for me all the time with technology. I'm not familiar enough with it, and I'm too old-school a brain to be able to figure it out. I'm dumb. Anything that I have to attack with my thumbs, for any period of time, makes me feel stupid. So, I try to avoid it, as much as possible, to protect my thumbs.
When I was a senior in high school, I worked at a theater where they hired New York actors. And they told me about 'Backstage,' and so I got my school in Pennsylvania to subscribe. And there was an audition for a tour of 'The Sound of Music,' and I got the job. Deferred my admission to college just to go on tour.
As an actor, you don't want to know the beginning and end to your character's arc. It makes it more fun. You're not playing the end. You're playing it realistically. You don't know where this character is going to go and what's going to happen to him, which just makes it more interesting for the viewers to watch.
People will come up and say - and it is insulting - 'Do you ever want to do anything else? Like some real acting? Or a real show?' Here's the thing: You can either get upset about that, or you can realize that that person isn't trying to offend you. They're literally interested, and they're asking you a question.
I've had the opportunity to work with so many great directors. Different styles, as well, like Gus Van Sant. He just does the casting and the milieu and let's you do your thing, quietly. Bertolucci, who can talk to you about your internal world in quite a creative way or just say, 'Well, put your hand over here.'
My mother was Welsh and I loved going to Wales every summer, where Uncle Les had a farm. My mother had seven brothers and a sister and they were all very close. There would always be food on the table and uncles coming in and out. My father's family were English and lived in London, and we didn't really see them.
So unless we form some kind of adequate relationship to death, we're never going to live properly, and if we think of it purely as a medical thing, we have reduced life. We should think of it as some sort of mystery which we can participate in now, not something to be pushed off to one side till the last moments.
In my divorce, I stood up and said to my ex-wife, 'Hey, I messed up. This had nothing to do with you. I didn't understand what marriage was. I cheated. I was wrong. We couldn't fix it; it got worse. I stepped away because I didn't want it to get any worse. You're the mother of my kids - I don't want to hate you.'
I lead a very active lifestyle. When I am not working, I enjoy snowboarding in winter. I golf and swim in the summer months. However, trying to find the time to exercise when I am traveling is quite a challenge. I find myself working out at hotel gyms quite regularly - just so that I can keep up with my training.
When I was writing the book, I thought "Who wants to hear another story about some actor who lost his way?" But my story is a little unique in that I realized when I was 14 years old that I was different. I think a lot of gay people use drugs and alcohol to quell that fear and shame - especially people of my age.
My father was overbearing. Very controlling. He was always the way he is, even before my success. He was not always a good person. He'd play mind games to make sure I knew my place. I don't see him, which is unfortunate. But I don't have any desire to see him. I vaguely know where he is, and I don't want to know.
[Crack epidemic] definitely has impacted folks in my family, most definitely. I think that's true for most, if not all people, regardless of color, that grew up in and around areas that were closer to the nucleus of the crack epidemic.If you look at Baltimore or D.C., Detroit, Chicago, Oakland, like, Los Angeles.
I think the most important thing is to always be involved in every aspect of their life. To give them enough trust that they can share things with you. I don't want them to be terrified of me, you know? But I don't want them to think they can do whatever they want and get away with it, either, because they can't.
I would love to direct but I feel like directing is a whole separate craft and so I tend to respect it as a separate craft that I would need to study first. So, right now I'm still trying to do certain things as an actor and until I get bored of that or I feel completely fed by that then I'll move into directing.
In the beginning, I was always playing some kind of gangbanger and the token Mexican dude who didn't have a lot of lines but was in the entire movie. At the same time, everyone gets typecast, and I decided that if I was going to play a stereotypical role, I was going to play it like a three-dimensional character.
I guess if there's one thing that might surprise people about me, it's that I'm very obedient. I'm kind of like a dog. I look at acting as kind of a service industry. You're there to serve the writer and the director. I don't really look at it as an act of self-expression, like I'm going to say what's on my mind.
The thing about New York is, more than any other place I've ever been, you run into people on the street that you would never imagine you'd see, old friends, people just like there for a day or two. I find that all the time when I'm walking around Manhattan, running into people that I had no idea were even there.
One thing about being a stand-up is it's a one-man show. You gotta do everything. You're the producer, writer, director, and the actor. You just gotta be out there and perform and give your all. It's such an honest form of art that it just taught me so much, and it kind of prepared me for manhood at an early age.
What's great about 'Game of Thrones' is they change the perspective, the POV, all the time. So you will have one story told by one character and you'll go, 'Oh my God, horrible', and then maybe the season after you have the same story told but from the person you thought was just the most horrible, vile creature.
When I write a project, it might be something that I want to do and then when I look at it, I'm actually like, "I kind of don't want to direct it." I don't know why, I still love it enough for it to be made and to support it, but I don't want to direct it. I just give it to other directors and they do a good job!
I love the pictures of Old Hollywood, seeing the directors dressed in suits and ties. Even the grips would be wearing ties. But the biggest thing is when I was a kid, I couldn't wait to be an adult, and I think what happens with most guys is that no one wants to be an adult anymore. So they're dressing like kids.
Everybody who's making the movies needs to work hard to make sure they're good. And if you don't show up and see the movies and support them financially, no one is going to make them. It's going to change unless it makes money. That's the long and short of it. You have to give in to the fact that it's a business.