I did enjoy singing the song, called "The Count", which is Count Olaf's big song that he sings to the kids when they first arrive with his henchpeople. He wrote it himself, and he thinks he's really, really talented, and it's a terrible song. So we had to learn intentionally bad choreography... We did these almost Lady Gaga-ish kind of movements, which were just awful, but that made me laugh
I like [Count] Olaf's wardrobe, because the whole thing seems like it should be a period piece in many ways, and yet the date is non-specific. So I would wear cloaks and jackets, but also turtlenecks. I was a little beatnik, and kind of hipster in that way.
The hardest part of playing the villain was the prosthetics, because I couldn't really move my face as much as I wanted to, and yet I had to move my face a lot. If I moved my face in certain ways the prosthetics would come apart, so I could do a lot of eyebrow acting, but I couldn't do a lot of nose lifting, or the corners of the nose would pop out.
Playing a villain was fun, only because you get to do all the things you wouldn't normally do in your real life.
The makeup [for Count Olaf] took about two and a half hours every morning. The meditation was another hour and a half. I would eat a big breakfast - that was probably 45 minutes. And then it was lunch.
I feel like with actors wanting to direct, you really only have a shot or two. You can't just make a bunch of little independent movies, and then finally one gets noticed. You have to make a really good one right away.
I'd love to be some sort of villain in a big-budget action movie. Or a superhero franchise. That'd be rad.
I sort of pride myself in my dissatisfaction with my work. I've always been concerned with buying the hype, and having that make your performances suffer.
You have to be careful when you're doing an interview.
I don't care about my "impact" - I only care about the theater as an art form and criticism as an act of writing.
I don't feel ignored. But I'd rather engage readers than dictate my opinion to them. Opinion is so...subjective!
If I'm doing some weird tick with my mouth, or not standing still or something, I'll be the first person to notice it, and then want to change that. I think it's important just to maintain trajectory, to not just use your same tricks over and over.
That movie [A Series of Unfortunate Events] told four books in two hours, and we have two hours per book. So we have eight hours to tell four books, and if people watch we'll get to tell more of them. There's only thirteen books, so there's only going to be two more seasons, but that allows for a lot of time to be in character and to maintain character.
