When you're the guy behind the camera, you're aware of the reasons for the compromises or the changes that get made. As an actor, you go and do your thing, and someone else down the line then does all the math and goes, "We can't include that thing where he's pretending to be dumb and needling those people, because it takes a minute and a half, and it ruins the next scene. It doesn't make sense." If you're directing, you're the one doing that.
I am in the process of starting a nonprofit organization that gives rescued animals a home in a simulated wild environment and, for those who have been tested on, who are disabled, aggressive, etc., their own space to live out their days.
I love getting ready to do a scene, and thinking about it, and talking about it. But the rest of the time, I'm so nervous and obsessed. I'm just tearing my hair out in the trailer. The whole time I'm really tense.
In New York, as long as you're not peeing in someone's doorway, everyone thinks you're a gentleman.
A movie's very different from the book, and it's different from the script, and it's usually one person's vision.
I feel like my behavior goes over better on the streets of New York.
I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.
Chickens, cows, and pigs in factory farms spend their whole lives in filthy, cramped conditions, only to die a prolonged and painful death.
The first dog I had was owned by an abusive couple. He was very skittish. He wouldn't let me hold him. It was explained to me that it was because of how he was treated.
All cultures are different. Some commit genocide. Some are uniquely peaceful. Some have enormous hunting festivals or annual stretches when nobody speaks. Some don't use electricity. In American culture, we obsess about celebrities. We create them, build myths around them, and then hunt them and destroy them. I don't know where its taking us or what it means but I know we do it.
You're encouraged to do the same kind of movies. But I would like to keep doing different things.
In my movies, there has been little to do in the way of animal rights. I have never worked in a movie with animals. No horse-riding, no trained dogs, lions, bears. A few actors, but what could I do? We had to have them.
When you consider the many ways in which people have to make a living every day when they wake up, I figure that eating 20 eggs isn't that bad.
Sometimes in the middle of a presidential campaign, there's a political movie, and people are sick of hearing about politics, and they don't want to see that movie. They'd rather see "Godzilla."
After I left LA... it was like waking up. And so I moved back east and stopped auditioning.
If you show up in L.A. with your shirt inside out or socks mismatched, people start putting change in your cup.
When I like someone a lot, I get scared that I'll let them down. My fear of sucking is worst when I feel like someone thinks I'm good.
People should try eating no animal products for just one day a week.
When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression.
I get offered a lot of the same type of thing... The teenage slasher movies.
If I can't see the humor in it, how am I going to be funny?
I read the book and I think, "Well, this is the movie we're going to make," and then someone else reads it, and they take a completely different movie from it. And both are valid.
I like to just keep the land within sight. Nowadays they can tell you if there's a storm three days out. So it's not much of a concern. But I've never been a big boat person. I don't spend a lot of time at sea.
Movies are collaborative, and that's part of what makes it a great experience. They're different from a lot of other art forms, but also it makes it seem like when you see the final product, you go, "I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have done this."
I moved out to LA, got an agent, started auditioning. I didn't know anything about how it worked. And since I was really bad, luckily, I didn't get any of those parts.
