One of the joys of cinema is that, given the right circumstances, and the genius director, an incredibly wonderfully actor can become the embodiment of his character.
The great writers like Chekhov know that tragedy and laughter are just a few steps from each other ... but it took me a long time as an actress to learn that. Actually Arthur Miller taught me in the Seventies. We were making a CBS TV drama of his play Playing for Time about Auschwitz but the characters were laughing. It was a big insight for me to realise that that was what's called gallows humour, in this case worse than the gallows, that humans need to laugh and make jokes in order to survive.
One must never comment as an actor, never show that a character is shallow or vindictive, but let that be conveyed. I mean, none of us thinks of ourselves as being vindictive or shallow - perhaps we should.
You can't do what you've been asked to do unless you do the best you can. And roughly speaking, the best you can do is to be very available as a character and actor to the people you're acting with. That's equally important, whether the camera's on the other person or on you.
