I never feel more confident and comfortable than when I'm wearing a Tom Ford suit.
I think every guy and girl would love to get to play Superman, at some point in their life.
The best experience for me at CMU was being on stage so much, getting that comfort ability and learning that technique you can use with any type of work because you’re comfortable with it and know your skill as an actor.
I think your text [script] is everything; it's what informs you; it's what gives you the given circumstances. Then you take that and you add your own creativity and your own spin on things and you make it personal. That's what makes that character and that text unique to you, when you personalize it. I think that's where your job as an actor comes in.
To me, when you're at a hotel and your home environment is ultimately dictated by somebody else, I always find that a little bit oppressive and scary in a way.
I lived in several hotels, yeah. You have to try to make it home.
I see myself working, making a living and doing projects that I'm passionate about, regardless of the medium.
Anybody who is rude to anyone in the service industry is automatically out.
I'm a long time [Scott] Fitzgerald fan, as probably everyone in America is. And I've always been fascinated by that theme of, what is the price of the American dream and what parts of your soul do you walk away with? The conflict of art versus commerce was also very interesting to me.
I’ve been a con artist since I was 16 and trying to get my dad to buy me a car. I never succeeded, but I learnt a lot of tactics.
I very comprehensively studied Irving Thalberg and his biographies. He's who [Scott] Fitzgerald roughly modeled the character after. He worked for him, as a writer, when he was at MGM. And, of course, I revisited the novel and the politics of MGM and the studio system at the time and familiarized myself with the world. There was a great deal of physical and literary work that went into it.
I at least felt the obligation to speak clearly [in 'The Last Tycoon']. This is pre-Brando and pre-James Dean. Nobody mumbled back then.
When you really put your heart and soul into something, the temptation is to try to be in control of circumstances, however you can, and looking and seeing how people are responding.
If youre wearing suits and you want to create your own sense of style, get to the tailor.
I like not to know, unless it's something that I need to know, specifically, for how I color a performance.
Unfortunately, in some parts of the country, some kids are taught at an early age that being different is somehow bad or wrong or worthy of ridicule.
As actors you're always going to take certain roles that are in your comfort zone and take ones that aren't.
Having done television for almost 20 years now, a pilot is kind of like a rough draft. It's like bringing people into your ultrasound and hooking up to the monitor and going, "Isn't my baby beautiful?" "Yeah. I can only see the outline of it, but it looks like it might be."
I love that Amazon has this incredibly unique, diplomatic process where people's voices are heard, and we're using this great interconnectedness we have, via the internet, to weigh in and to have a say in what we want to see and what we don't.
I really saw Pat Brady, Kelsey Grammer's character's point of view that it's a business. It's show business. So, it was an incredible opportunity to work with really wonderful creatives and the script was fantastic. What was so interesting to me about the studio system was that a lot of the politics that were in play then are so really relevant to today.
The last thing I want to do is having someone get behind a Montgomery Clift biopic, and then just do the first script that came out. Sometimes it takes a long time for these things to gestate. And I'm only going to do it if it's the right story that's told for the right reason, and that's relevant to this day and age, as much as it pays homage to who this man was. Should that happen during the time when I'm still young enough to play him, perfect. And if not, hopefully someone else will get to play him because I do think it's an incredible story.
Billy [Ray] is a preternatural enthusiast. He would say things to me like, "Now, let me tell you about Episode 3." I'm a big superstitious, having done television for quite some time, and I would say, "Billy, I can't wait to hear about it, but let's just stay here for right now, see what happens, and enjoy this moment.
I took movement classes that I wore my double-breasted suits to. I worked on my elocution because people spoke differently then. I was really trying to toe the line. I think that if I had spoken exactly the way that people spoke back then, it probably would have alienated people.
I had just finished reading The Day of the Locust when this piece was brought to my attention, and I was like, "How do you create art in the system, the way it is?" Looking around the studio film landscape, there are all of these great superhero movies, which is fantastic, especially for my kids, but it's hard to find real art house films in the studio system, these days.
If you gave your best to what you were given, at the time, it's going to play out how it's going to play out.
