I'd been on all the television programs as an actor, as a writer, as a director, as a producer.
I became an actor by accident, not by design.
What does it mean for an actor to make a part his own? It means that he takes on what you had intended and starts to put in his own stuff so that it becomes something that could only happen if he played it.
When you look at the piece of paper, and there's just words on there, you interpret it as the actor to whatever you think is right. There may not be the hidden meaning behind the dialogue, because you don't really get to see what's going on.
Actors want to work with you but they want you to do their thing. Actors, whom I love with a blind partiality, sometimes they want to be soloists in the symphony, not a part of the orchestra.
I've never worked with an actor that I did not like.
Actors will say, 'My character wouldn't say that.' Who said it was your character?
Usually being a young actor, you've got to go through certain levels of hierarchy, going through bit parts and extra roles and then kind of progressing up the food chain and having the size of your roles grow in that sense.
Directing, editing, and everything about filmmaking has definitely changed me as an actor.
As an actor in the classroom, you're revealing so much, and teachers are, you know, they're just critiquing like a painting or a piece of work; it's like, it's you, and it's your emotions that they're working with.
There's a large chunk of me in all the parts. As an actor, I got involved largely because I want to let things out. The best acting is that that is most real and the only way to do that, is to genuinely feel it.
I love to see actors' work. I love to surf channels late at night and accidentally run into movies I hadn't seen before. It makes me very proud of the profession.
I've never done anything comedic. In all the years I've been an actor, I've never delivered one comedic line.
I always change my words in everything I do. I make the language fit, because I know the character from the inside out. Often character actors are not in a position to do that, but I do it. I don't change any cue and I never change anybody else's lines, but I make my own words fit my mouth.
Usually, I'm the kind of actor where you show me once or twice, I can do it. I don't do it creatively, but I know how to do the process.
My definition of a character actor is - they never get the girl.
In comedy, beware the split focus. The audience should focus on the face of the actor. The audience must see the setup. If there is action elsewhere on the stage, the comic line can be lost.
Sure, I want to be the best actor in the world. But my life is my family, my son, my friends. I don't know how anyone can find fault with that.
In a weird way, I live vicariously through the characters I play as an actor.
I grew up in a family of actors. I grew up onstage. The choice for me wasn't, 'Do I want to be an actor or not?' I always felt like that's just ingrained in you, the need to perform. The choice was, 'Do you want to do this professionally or not?
My experience as a young actor on network television was that I couldn't make it work. I was drowning as an actor.
We tried to do a show once every three weeks to a month. We'd always do a new show. It was not successful. It did not become the Matt & Ben show, but it taught me what I like to do as an actor and what I like to do comedically.
I'm a grinding actor. That's how I've always viewed myself. You go from one job to the next.
There's always an intellectual side to the films Ang Lee's doing and to the characters, and there's such a deep knowledge when you've worked with the actors that he's worked with, on stage in particular, but also in film.
As an actor, no matter what, you're at the whim of so many other people all the time.
