I had the privilege of playing an angel on ‘Touched by an Angel’ for many years – almost two decades, and we would deliver a message on the show. The message was that God loves them, and before filming every scene, we would come together and pray.
And looking at today’s music scene, I think it’s cool that there are a lot of consumers and fans not limited by what radio and the record companies tell them to buy.
I think ‘Easy Rider’ might have been the first time that someone made a film using found music instead of an orchestral score. No one had really used found music in a movie before, except to play on radios or when someone was singing in a scene.
You have to learn how to act a pop song. You have to find the balance of the pop from the pop song and the lyrical significance of the scene you are in.
When I’m on an adult set and I’m in a scene, I am myself. I’m not acting. I am playing to the camera, definitely, but I am myself.
I think there has only been one time in my entire career that I’ve ever gone back to shoot a scene. And it was a scene that, when we were shooting it, we knew that it wasn’t working. We knew there was a disagreement between the actor and director. So, we went back.
I write on a visual canvas, ‘seeing’ a scene in my thoughts before translating it into language, so I’m a visual junkie.
As actors we always say that once the person in a scene gets what they want, the scene is over. It’s resolved. But life is never resolved – you’re always in the process.
I try to use all of my senses when describing a setting, and try to think of everything that would impact a character in any given scene.
I’ll generally write out every scene that’s in the film on a couple of pieces of paper, just with a little one-line. And then I can scan it a bit and go, ‘This first third of the film, generally, I’m kind of calm.’ Then I might do something on one piece of paper that just relates to the energy of the character.
I wanted to look at the upper-middle-class scene since the war, and in particular my generation’s part in it. We had spent our early years as privileged members of a privileged class. How were we faring in the Age of the Common Man? How ought we to be faring?
Congressional Republicans are dismantling the limited environmental protections initiated by Richard Nixon, who would be something of a dangerous radical in today’s political scene.
When we were doing a scene, lots of times we would collapse giggling, because it seemed so silly because it felt like we were doing a home movie at times.
I like the fact you can spend two hours setting up a scene that will only last a couple of seconds. And I like just sitting around and dozing between scenes!
I listened to all types of music, and obviously when I got to Seattle I was very much aware of the music scene there.
A lot of times, good improv is when both people, or however many people are in the scene, really have no idea what the next thing you’re going to say is.
One scene is enough for a good actor to leave his mark in any film.
I think so much of writing is an instinct, or a feel for a scene, or a feel for a character. You have to put into words the word ‘tone,’ which I think is thrown around a lot and can mean a hundred different things, but communicating that to other people is definitely a challenge.
One day, my twin sister Sidra and I pranked Tyler Perry on the set of ‘For Better or Worse.’ I made her dress up as me and do a scene as if she were my character Angela. Tyler says, ‘Action!’ and my sister starts acting. It was horrible.
You know, I just tend to do the scene that I’m given, really. If it really needs it, then I’ll go to them and ask ‘What’s she talking about? What’s she referring to?’ But often they don’t know, or they do know and they’re not going to tell me, so I’ve learned just to work with what I’m given.
It didn’t matter as much because I’m a singer, not an actress, but my face is more acceptable in a way now than when I first came on the scene, because I’m part black.
I think there’s a natural system in your own head about how much violence the scene warrants. It’s not an intellectual process, it’s an instinctive process.
I very much prefer the balance in a scene to standing out and so you have to make a decision.
If I’m doing a scene that requires a lot of focus, I’ll just take myself away and do what I have to do.
I had this extraordinarily bizarre moment when, two Fridays ago, my missus gave birth to our second child at 11am and by the same time the following day I was sitting around a table with Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio in Rabat in Morocco, rehearsing a scene we were going to shoot the next day.
I got into shape because I took kick-boxing lessons every day to prepare for a fight scene with Taylor Lautner. I really wanted to lie down and eat Chinese food, but I kick-boxed every morning and ran. If someone was filming you with your kit off, you’d do the same thing.
Usually, when I read something, I’m looking for the story first. And then, when I re-read it, I check every part of it to see whether every scene is necessary. You imagine yourself watching the movie, to see whether or not you’re losing the through-line of the story.
I was never really a bone fide member of the folk scene.
The joy of ‘Crash’ was that it was all about the work. It was my first real part. Before that, it was a line here and there, maybe a scene. ‘Crash’ was five scenes, a beautiful arc, a little vignette of my own. It really meant something.
When someone’s acting for a scene, they can fool the camera. But in everyday life, unless you’re watching and censoring yourself every minute, or spending all your time in the company of ladies, what you feel is bound to show in your eyes.
I love the hip-hop scene.
Sometimes, when you’re on the streets, certain music inspires you, and then you have a vision. But, at the end of the day, it’s a synthesis of visions, so you have to think, as a director, of a scene, or how to deliver a line, or how do this visually.
Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.
If I have enough ego to say I’m a writer, a director, a producer, and an actor, I should have the energy and the knowledge to write a scene for this great actor named Henry Fonda and direct him in it and have it work.
When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.
In some ways any film that you do has an artificiality about it. Even when you’re doing the most kitchen-sinky, gritty, realistic scene you’ve still got 50 people standing around watching you with cameras and lights and things.
Whether I’m acting or making it, at the end of the day it’s telling the story; action, drama. You want the audience to feel it – the story, the action, the scene, or a particular shot. I just keep working on crafting my art, on how to make action movies.
Television is fast and loose. You have two or three takes to get your part right, and if you have a problem, well, by the time you figure it out, everyone’s moved on to the next scene. It’s good training, keeps you on your toes.
Do you remember a scene with Ryan and Ali playing in the snow? Well, that was improvised.
I want to beat up Michael Fassbender in a movie. I was with him at the beginning of his career when he did an episode of ‘Murphy’s Law.’ He’s a proper superstar and enormously talented, but I want to do a scene where I properly duff him up.
I was pleased when the picture was over I fit in all right and I spoke well enough as I said before, cause I was scared to death there for a minute. I mean, you’re doing a scene with somebody like that or they’re watching you or something, you’d better come up with something.
You can’t give up something you really believe in for financial reasons. If you die by the roadside – so be it. But at least you know you’ve tried. Ten minutes in the music scene was the equal of one hundred years outside of it.
Bore children, and they stop reading. There’s no room for self-indulgence or showing off or setting the scene.
Henry Fonda gave me a spanking during a scene in Spencer’s Mountain.
It’s been a fascinating thing because we didn’t really know how to write when we started South Park at all. It’s been like, we’ve just sort of grown up a bit and it’s amazing to just see how, if you take Butters and Cartman and put them in any scene, it works.
I am really proud to be a part in whatever way of women becoming active in the political scene. I think it was the first time that people came to terms with the reality of what it meant to have a Senate made up of 98 men and two women.
A zeal for the defence of their country led these heroes to the scene of action, though with a few men to attack a powerful army of experienced warriors.
The history of Christianity, therefore, must be of concern to all who are interested in the record of man and particularly to all who seek to understand the contemporary human scene.
In Canadian comedy, you’ll almost never see guns. If you bring a gun into a scene, it’s like, ‘Whoa! Wow, how are we going to deal with that!’ Guns in an American comedy are a given. Violence in America is used in a much more cavalier way.
