I trained as a theatre actor and you had a bare stage and you had to pretend, one prop and you are in the middle of 8th Ave. and traffic is just going by.
I don't see the world completely in black and white. Sometimes I do.
You deal with failure - strike, strike, strike - all the time. Acting is like that. You have to have a very thick skin in a way - your hair is too dark, you're too ugly for the part, your audition wasn't good.
I've played drug dealers, all my life. I've made a career of killing people and playing all kinds of killers. The violence and drugs is portrayed in exaggeration. This is fiction. That is how I looked at it. And, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Just open a newspaper.
I won and I get to scream and jump a little. But I got to go back to work tomorrow.
I've always played the guy with the gun and the knife. That's how many actors start out, playing the bad guy.
I'm not Jack Nicholson. I'm not Brando. But I do mumble.
Before I was even in high school, I had dark circles under my eyes. Rumor was that I was a junkie. I have dark circles under my eyes, deal with it.
I'm a fan myself, so when a fan does something that might be strange, I understand it.
To be honest with you, I'd rather not be working. When you work, there are all sorts of deadlines and pressures. I like to do one thing and take my time to do the other one.
Some roles have been with me forever
You might get some serial killers who are born with a chip missing, but for the most part I don't think anyone is born bad.
The very first things that I did, even in theater, were bad guys. They are meaty roles for the most part. With the bad guy you have more freedom to experiment and go further out than with a good guy.
I think having a vision can make someone an influential man. I'm not talking about acting or anything like that, I'm talking about people I admire, whether it's a writer or a musician or a sports figure or a politician, whatever.
When I was a little kid, I was the first kid in my neighborhood to have a pet alligator.
I've had people ask me: 'How can you make a movie about a murderer? A terrorist?' What they don't understand is that I'm in support of everyone who appears on screen. I have to be. I take the position of everyone who's on screen. I'm not judging them one way or another.
When you do a movie the clock is ticking. It's like a sport.
Before I was ever in high school, I had dark circles under my eyes.
I don't think I could be a foot soldier. I don't know if I could take orders too good. I'm a little lazy.
It really is a pleasure to work with someone who you admire. Whatever you do in front of the camera, and I don't know what it is, but actors have this thing that you recognize someone that makes you better. When you do that, it's a great feeling.
My grandfather was a lawyer, my dad was a lawyer, my mum was a lawyer, I got an uncle who's a lawyer, I got cousins that are lawyers.
It's funny, but when I arrived in California to start college I was much more interested in becoming a surfer and cruise along in life from one beach to the next. I didn't plan out any huge career for myself.
It depends, because sometimes an action role can be very demanding, and sometimes a dialogue-driven character can be very demanding, and vice versa. It depends.
I've liked most of the films that I've been in and those are the kinds of films I like to see.
I used to play basketball and I was pretty competitive, but I was never a bad loser. I never got angry. For me it was always about doing my best and devoting myself to a challenge.
