When you're doing a play, you're onstage, there's no stopping or starting, there's no stopping to reposition for the camera or have a check done. You're there 'till the end of the show. What that gives you is a great gift, which is to command the audience, and you get to play with your script and your fellow actors. Every night, it's different. Hopefully it goes well and you get a great response. But the technique that you have to have on film or television is so delicate. It's fine-tuning. That is very different from being onstage, but they both have important skill sets.
As long as I'm enjoying what I'm doing, then that's fine. That's what I want. I want to enjoy life. We're only here for a small ride, so it may as well be a good one. If I can go to work enjoying what I do, then my life becomes a very nice one.
Every day is a work day, and I have to work my ass off just as much as any other guy, doing whatever job they're doing. I believe in commitment and hard work, and hopefully, after that, success comes.
I used to just daydream all the time about being in movies, from the age of like, four onwards. I would sit down and watch movies with my father and my grandfather, and always pretended that I was in the stories.
I believe that the greatest music is storytelling anyway, in a heightened medium. So I write a lot of music, and I play a lot with my guitar, I still sing a lot, but now I'm more personal about it than public, in a way. I think there will be a time where I'd like to bring the singing back into some of my performances. It all depends if the material's right, if the story's right, if it's my kind of taste in music, as well. It means so much to me. We all know how affective music can be, I just want to make sure when I do it, I'm doing it because I actually feel it and I care about it.
For me, the key is always trying to find the connection between the audience and the character I'm playing. That's important to me, in any work I do.
I'm a big believer in playing truth and not doing things for effect. It's not about whether you look pretty or glamorous. It's about whether people connect.
I want to be challenged. Every job I've done so far, every character has been completely different and that's really important to me because I don't want to fall into a stereotypical box.
A good actor knows exactly what the camera wants, what the sound wants, where to find the light and how to tell a good through line and journey.
The biggest thing about me, as an actor, is I'm never a finished product, you know? I always want to try something or be in a new genre because, one, it's much more fun to do that because you're not doing the same thing over and over. One of the greatest reasons is that it keeps stretching you as an actor. So, hopefully, my method is that it makes me a better actor, and a more believable actor, so then, the more experience I have in any way possible, in a drama or a musical genre, different formats of working, the better I can be on all different platforms.
I don't approach my acting as just saying a few lines and then going off-screen. It's a craft. I really invest in trying to make it a craft.
Of course, every actor has their box and you have to respect and play for it, but I do love challenging myself. I love every role to be new, and I always like to bring a freshness to every character I play.
