I started performing in high school. There was a pretty great drama department at my school, and that's when I started doing plays and musicals.
I haven't been offered a lot of comedy. In theater, I've done quite a bit of comedy or dramas that included a lot of funny stuff. But in my TV work, those aren't the roles that I've been offered.
I like people to be surprised by the turn of events. I don't want things just to be pat and formulaic. If there's some sort of internal combustion in the character or a desire to change the way things are going, that makes for conflict, which is the essence of drama.
People who make documentaries have to be faithful to the facts. But when you are making a drama, a fiction based on the life, all you have to be faithful to is the spirit of the facts, which I think I was in every case. As long as you don't violate their spirit, you can play with the facts.
You don't get to see all my family drama, you don't get in my relationships, and you don't get to live inside my personal life. But if you don't pick at me, I'm pretty open to just let you in.
First play I ever did was 'Footloose.' I played the part of Willard when I was 16. I think I wore my drama teacher's jeans and her belt - that's how small I was. I know a lot of Willard's back story from the musical that's not explored in the film. Like he's got this whole relationship with his mama, and he sings this song "Mama Says".
I'm proud of everything I've done. If it's comedy, it's 'cause I think it's funny. If it's a drama, it's impactful. I'm leaning towards dramas now because I wrapped a couple comedies in a row. I don't like watching myself, but it's easier on me when I don't have to carry a lot of the comedy. But I enjoy making comedies but dramas come more naturally.
When I first started getting into acting, I was doing improv in acting class, and I had done a serious monologue and everyone was cracking up laughing and I went to the drama teacher and said I don't want to be the class clown anymore, I want to do serious work, too, and they loved that, and so I started mixing in drama.
When it's a comedy or drama or horror or romance, it's all the same. You want to be honest with the character. You want to play truthfully and you want to be genuine with your character.
I love playing different characters and I love doing fun things and I love to entertain people, whether that be in a comedy or a drama. If I get you to laugh or I get you to cry I'm super stoked, as morbid as that might sound.
A lot of people give actors credit when they gain weight for a role in a drama when they win an Oscar, but when you’re doing a sitcom, people don’t give you a lot of credit, because you’ve got to keep your weight on for five or six years if it’s successful.
I like films that are so funny, dramatic and lifelike simultaneously, that you are laughing and cringing simultaneously all throughout the film.
I thought if I could do stand-up comedy well enough, I could parlay it back into films - like Charlie Chaplin and Woody Allen did. They merged principles of comedy and drama together, and that's what my first film really was, a stab at that kind of comedy.
I never wanted to do just comedy or just drama; sometimes, going back and forth you can get yourself in trouble which happened to me on other things so you're always trying for a delicate balance - I also think that they compliment each other so well.
All of the sadness and drama you have lived in your life was rooted in the making of assumptions and taking things personally. The whole world of control between humans is based on that.
Only the truth can set us free from the fear, the drama and the conflict of our lives.
If the first ‘Hangover’ movie were this awful, there never would have been a Part Two. This is a joyless, unfunny mix of comedy and drama, a complete waste of time, with exactly one good joke in the entire movie. It comes in the first minute. After that, you can leave.
I don't like weak women and I don't find it interesting to play them. I'm inspired by them, when I see them in dramas, like with Natalie Portman, in almost every movie she's in. It's awesome that chicks can really go there, and it's beautiful to watch, but I don't think I'm interested, in any way, shape or form, in embodying those creatures.
I find that in preparation for a drama you can do a lot of character work and develop the character and know what you want to achieve and project throughout the course of the film.
When I did 'Battlestar Galactica' it was the first time I really understood science fiction. That was a very political drama, but set in spaceships so people didn't really take it seriously. But some really fascinating things were explored in that.
The experience of reading a novel and watching a television show are quite different. You can't let your audience get ahead of you, and you have to keep the energy and the pace and the drama up. They're very different things.
Othello' was my first Shakespearean discovery. I was obsessed with drama at school, and I studied the play for my English GCSE. Desdemona is the part that everyone wants, but Iago's wife Emilia is the one I've always been drawn to.
Most people seem to assume that this dramatic surge in imprisonment was due to a corresponding surge in crime, particularly violent crime.
I've always played down the drama in my films. In my main scenes, there's never an opportunity for an actor to let go of everything he's got inside. I always try to tone down the acting, because my stories demand it, to the point where I might change a script so that an actor has no opportunity to come out well.
I don't want to compare myself to him - I don't want people to see me as this great genius - but when I see Charlie Chaplin's movies there is a combination of drama, naivety and social meaning that I can see in myself, at a different level.
