My favorite thing in the whole is getting to work with the actors.
And there are lots of moments when I think, ‘What am I doing as an actor? I can’t act!’
I don't normally get very star struck. However, I was just at a table read for a movie. It was an animated movie where they have all the actors come in and sit around a big table and read the whole script out loud so you can see what's working, what's not working. And this is an animated movie that Paul McCartney is doing and he's producing it. So I got to meet Paul McCartney.
I've always wanted to be an actor. I didn't get into this game to be the best improviser in the world. I didn't choose improv as a stepping stone, it just happened to become one.
I always fancied myself more of an actor than a comedian before I realized that only assholes make that kind of distinction.
Everyone wants to label me, but I don't want to be labeled as a rapper or a movie actor.
Some actors - you work with them once and don't even think about working with them again.
Maybe that's my lot in life as an actor, to be the guy who gets crapped on everywhere he goes. Oh God...
An actor is like an instrument, tune them, play them the right way.
I can be tough on actors, but I also let them know early on in our relationship what I expect from them.
I'm very loving and supporting of my actors. I also expect them to show up prepared, happy to be there, and give their all as I do as an actor.
I know when an actor is giving it his/her all and when they're just phoning it in.
I think the toughest thing about being an actor in a film is to be with a director who doesn't know what they want. And that can be really, really frustrating.
I never think of myself as a celebrity - or even an actor, actually. I think of myself as a writer-director.
I mean everyone, from Al Pacino to Murphy Guyer, are phenomenal actors.
I can bring in experiences that other actors who only grew up in television do not have.
I love my situation as a spectator. The actors are only a little bit ahead of the audience. The audience discovers the episode when it's screened, but we actors only discover the episode when we get the script, two weeks ahead of shooting. Until then, we know nothing of the evolution of our characters.
As a young actor, I worked with Kevin McNally and have always thought him brilliant.
I had a very low voice for the character in the show. I said, "That's not actually my voice. That's the character's voice." I'm being such an actor.
I'm very interested in directing actors - many directors direct cameras.
When an actor is offered a role, more often than not - maybe 90 percent of the time - you read it and you say, "I'll take it."
Actors do have good and bad sides. It's because the passage down the birth canal distorts the face. People born by caesarean section are more symmetrical.
When you work as an actor, you've got to feel safe even in what appears to be the simplest things.
I do my work as an actor, but another part of my work goes to the piece as a whole. I can be fairly detached looking at my work and be brutal on myself.
One of the joys of being an actor is that you're always learning new things. And I've been doing this since I was 19, so there's been a lot of new things I have learned for each part. I always assume that I can do it.
