I've always believed that the greatest actors are the ones that have the voices that are imitable.
I certainly would never overstep my bounds and make suggestions to a director. As an actor I'm trying to fit to the best of my abilities within the director's vision, and trying to find some happy rapport where we can both bring something to it that's fresh. Usually I've been lucky in working with directors who have trusted my instincts.
I don't know why it is, but I do like dancing in the extreme situations. I like that noise, I like that intensity. For some reason, it's what I respond to in terms of my taste and of my instincts.
These so called Popcorn movies, or family movies, actually provide something quite beautiful and something quite necessary, which is a family bonding experience.
When you're playing a spirit from another dimension, you really can do anything and get as abstract as you want and still have a context that will work within the movie. I wanted Ghost Rider to move in a way where it would be like a bad dream. I thought about cobra snakes, and the way that they will show you their backs and sway in a rhythmic motion and almost lull you to sleep before suddenly attacking. Well, I put that into the movie. And I decided to move my head in the jerky way a praying mantis does. So, I did all these things to give the movie a feeling of otherness.
Sometimes I do love to rehearse, but I always switch it up depending on whom I'm working with.
I try to keep my characters raising more questions than giving answers. I don't want to leave too much on the table. I want you to have your connection and your secret understanding of the character.
I never say never, but I haven't been given the quality of script to compel me to go on television.
I would say that I'm 98 percent skeptical, but the other 2 percent [is] open for the possibility of things.
God bless the popcorn film. Especially movies where you can take the kids, because I remember looking forward to seeing these movies with my parents, and if I can give that back, I'm gonna do it.
I came out of independent film, that's my roots. I used my independent film as a laboratory, and used what I could discover in that laboratory.
When you're playing supernatural characters, there's an infinite number of possibilities with a character. And I also think they're wonderful and entertaining for the whole family. You don't have a high body count.
I love working with younger actors because they always come into the game full of energy and ideas that challenge me and keep me learning and stimulated.
Nobody can make a movie as exciting as Jerry Bruckheimer. When it's a Jerry Bruckheimer movie that it's going to have lots of chrome and gloss, it's going to be sexy, and it's going to be big and fun.
You often feel like you are on a high wire with no net productions because you have to rely on spontaneity and come up with ideas on the spur of the moment - and then what happens is that there is electricity to it that gets caught.
Generally my instinct is to not do biographical movies. I want to build characters and not be locked into playing a part in history.
More than ever, movies reveal themselves as healing, as helpful, as encouraging, as escapist - anything that makes someone get through their day in these times. It's the best form of entertainment, and it's still arguably the most inexpensive form of entertainment.
I was thinking about being more global in my work, which means trying more foreign countries and working with foreign filmmakers, hoping they would give me a new take on my work, a new point of view, reinvent me in some way.
My father always used to say to me, it doesn’t matter what the profession is, but if they’re the best in their field, it will always be fascinating to watch.
I wasn't any good at romnace. I was a total nerd. My thing is, I was just too romantic. I was the romantic goofball. I wasn't cynical enough or harsh enough. I cared too much, so I always made a fool out of myself.
Movies work, in my opinion, on the best level when they're more enigmatic, when we don't say it's this or that and where it raises more questions than answers.
People often say that you should never work with child actors. I think that's all wrong. Children have not had the imagination kicked out of them by life experience and adulthood. So, they still are very much alive with that kind of magical thinking which enables an actor to believe they're in these circumstances and make them real to you.
I find children inspiring. The way they look at the world. The magical world they live in, to me, is inspiring.
I like the idea of being involved in pictures that can entertain the entire family and can stimulate youngsters into looking at picture books. There's nothing wrong with that.
With every action oriented or adventure film, there's going to be a moment when every actor becomes a stuntman and every stuntman becomes an actor. You try to do as much of it as you can, but inevitably the studio wants you to finish the movie. So you've got to slow down and you're really got to defer to your team to make sure you do.
