Oliver Stone's strategy is to unnerve the actors so as to make them alert and alive.
I got an agent when I was 12, and I started working in more amateur productions well before that. But even as a kid, I never felt like a kid actor, you know? I always took myself kind of absurdly seriously.
Actors want to surprise themselves. When it's really good, you kind of transcend yourself, and that happens infrequently. Very, very rarely.
Both Averill and Bayar were like actors speaking lines for their audience and not to each other.
It's what actors call a big, juicy part, when you're a leading man. I don't get a lot of those. I get a lot of supporting things.
I was never a child actor. I was a child performer.
There probably aren't a lot of actors my age who tap dance.
My background is in musical comedy. I didn't know I was going to be an actor. But all my points of reference have to do with musical comedy and in being kind of a showoff.
I became an actor by accident.
As an actor I'm rather hit and miss, I throw a lot out there, and some of it works and some of it doesn't. But this is a nice part.
I certainly have never been an actor who can play the Everyman guy - or, I don't tend to get those parts. I've tended to play eccentrics. I've played a lot of villains, of course.
I became an actor by accident. I suppose I figured since I was in musical comedy from the time I was a teenager, I suppose I figured that I'd always been in that world to some extent.
I had great faith in Irish actors, that they'd be hip to the whole theatre thing, and they are. I had no illusions of coming over here as some kind of big shot. It's been a learning experience for me too.
I'm just an actor, but if the extra part of it is that I'm helping people or people are being helped by the virtue of what we're doing, then that's just a really nice added extra.
Now I don't want to feel cornered as an actor, because I've got a wider range than that.
It's not a matter of becoming a superstar. Fame and money aren't the purpose of all this. No actor's going to say, 'I don't want to be famous.' But the main purpose for doing what I'm doing is the passion in the work.
A lot of times, as an actor, especially a TV or film actor, you don't get a lot of interaction, or you don't get the feeling you are actually touching someone, or someone actually cares about what you do.
I just want to keep doing things completely different from the other. I just want to keep working with great people, great filmmakers and great actors and just building on that experience.
Your duty as an actor is to try to make it as real as possible.
The actors have confidence in me to let me lead them to unexpected things.
Typically, I like to talk and meet with actors face to face well before we start shooting.
I demanded two weeks of rehearsal because to me as an actor, that's the most important time.
Its only when you are a great actor and are recognised for your good work that you become famous. Unless you are in the news for the wrong reasons!
Jim Carrey is a consummate actor and professional. He comes on set, knows his lines and knows his moves
You are always damned by things that you do well as an actor.
