I think with actors, we tend to get rid of characters - and not get rid of them as in discard them or throw them away, but it's just that you take that jacket off because you're going to be putting a different jacket on.
I think there's an initial shedding of the skin of a character when you've played them for so long, almost like a snake losing its skin. But when a job is done, I kind of walk away from it because I know that I need to prep for whatever else I'm going onto - I need to get back to being myself, which... Who knows exactly who that is, with all the talking voices in my head. You know, back to being a bit of a blank slate again. It becomes a necessity as an actor - at least for the way that I act.
I think I had the good fortune to watch Sly the Artist [Sylvester Stallone]; to watch him in all arenas. As an actor, not many people get to see him turn that character on, they don't understand that he's playing a role.
You have to be able to sustain life. So moments are going to be lighter, but moments are also going to be heavier. I think just the understanding that life goes in a million different directions, and hopefully, if you find excitement by what these characters are experiencing and what they're living through, and you're impacted by them as human beings, then that's the sustainability of the show [This is Us].
Given the loss of a child or the birth of a child or anything like that, I think it's just I'm more moved by life, the older I get, so it's easier to connect to the characters that I play.
As an actor it's like, go with whatever excites you as an actor. What are you're going to invest yourself in as a character? What are you going to get into? Have a variety of characters to play.
I don't feel the pressure to deliver an unrealistically great man to the screen; I just want to be honest to who my character is on the page. If I can reflect that and put some heart into him and make him real, then I think I've done my job, and I think that people will like who he is.
My job is always going to change; the characters that I'm playing are always going to change. I look forward to playing a grandfather at some point.
An audience gets to hang onto the characters for the rest of their lives if they want. I think it's great that the fans do that. It's just not too practical for a man like myself because I have to move on.
[With] this show [This Is Us], I don't think I was seeking something outside of the world I'd always played in so much as I'm ruled by characters. If it's a great character, I'm invested. It doesn't matter what the genre, what the storyline, anything.
You have to have sympathy for the villain. Even the most disgusting ones, you have to find something to connect with. I try to put as much of myself in every single character that I play.
For me, what grabs my attention about the project is usually the character immediately and then the story, and then the people that are involved.
People forget that actors are actors, who are looking to put on the clothes and the character, and then shed it just as easily.
You've got this world, these pathologists that are, day in and day out, taking apart bodies, coming up with theories about how they died and how to better serve the community. At the same time these people have lives outside and families and my character in particular, he has a fiance and things are going well for him, so you've got to show that nice warm compassionate side at the same time you've got to show the steely, icy cool of a doctor. Not only that, but a doctor who gets a bit of a God complex and starts killing people for sport.
