Sometimes you think about the job that we, as actors, do. I take it very seriously, and I care very much about it, but I’m paid to make believe. When you’re a kid, you go to your friend’s house, and it’s, ‘Let’s pretend we’re both cowboys!’ Without belittling it, that’s basically what I do – I tell stories.
Our school not only makes you an actor, it makes you understand who you actually are as well… it gives you discipline and punctuality. It also teaches you a way of life.
It’s a nice challenge to escape your reality. I think that’s why actors do what we do. We like to play other people. It’s therapeutic.
As an actor there are times when you’re sitting around and wishing you were working, so you’ve got to just take it when it comes.
I used to work in a clothes store, played cricket for money, did photo shoots. It was that period of struggle which gave me the experience to be an actor. The emotions have to come from the raw material of life.
There are a lot of actors who will watch the monitors. They’ll do a scene, and then the director will look back to see if he got whatever he wanted. I just find it odd to sit there and watch yourself.
It took me a long time to find out that I was born to be an actor. It was the last thing on my list, although my list was very small. I didn’t know what to do. But kids weren’t supposed to know what to do back then; we were all cute and we’d find out what we’d do later in life.
It’s always a little mind-boggling to realize that these famous actors know who I am.
In a very short period of time, actors can become kind of relevant and hot.
I have a very thick skin altogether – surprisingly, many actors are rather fragile, but I get that of the 10 million people watching an episode, probably 3 million hate me, and I’m comfortable with that.
I think, before ‘Watchmen,’ I was the guy from ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ who’s a pretty good guy, a pretty charming sweet guy, and so as an actor, I really wanted to do something as far from that as I could.
An actor’s popularity is fleeting. His success has the life expectancy of a small boy who is about to look into a gas tank with a lighted match.
Actors are one family over the entire world.
Everybody wants to have their ‘Breaking Bad.’ It went to Bryan Cranston. It couldn’t have happened to a better guy or a better actor.
My career aspirations as an actor have always been driven foremost by the creative desire to be versatile.
In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime.
In my previous profession, when I was a producer, scriptwriter and actor, I wanted to get an Oscar, I wanted to be popular in the U.S.A.
I look up to Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. I’m a huge fan of their work. I also like actors who really transform themselves, like Joaquin Phoenix. And I loved Robin Williams growing up. He does comedy and drama so brilliantly.
I think I’m a good actor, but to replicate tens of thousands of man hours in surgery is really hard.
Leonardo DiCaprio is a very serious young actor.
I got the Clarence Durbin Award, the Equity Award – which is cool because it has a cash prize which is cooler than a trophy, especially when you’re a struggling actor, and you can’t pay rent.
I love learning new things from the other actors.
As an artist, as an actor, as a writer, you have to use what’s personal to you. You have to be personal about your work; otherwise, it doesn’t ring true.
I think it’s very important not to grow up with the unhealthy amount of attention that is sometimes put on people because they are ‘actors’.
Actors fall into this trap if they missed being loved for who they really were and not for what they could do – sing, dance, joke about – then they take that as love.
There are two types of actors: those who say they don’t want to be famous, and those who are liars.
An actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.
I want to be the greatest actor that ever lived, frankly. I’d love that. But I don’t need to be. I just want to be here. That’s it.
I had a really great experience so far with film acting. And most experiences from most actors, I’ve heard, are not like this. But I want a career that has many disciplines and many options.
I always knew I’d be more of a character actor than a leading man, and I always wanted to take that and run with it.
Painting and photography keep the creative channel open, and for an actor, it’s to keep alive, it’s to keep awake, it’s to keep watching, it’s to keep feeling, it’s to keep enjoying, to keep that sensuality of feeling alive.
God, I don’t think I could give advice when such other incredible actors have done it before me and done such amazing things. I think it would be unfair of me.
I always wanted to be an actor, but with a speech impediment it’s kind of tough. I decided to roll the dice and take an acting class, which was very, very nerve-wracking… my stomach would just be in knots.
I’m constantly trying to find something that’s different from me, whereas some actors do the same thing, again and again. That’s not for me.
It’s the way the business works, you’re not just an actor, you’re a diplomat and a publicist and a politician, and there are certain expectations.
The Welsh are all actors. It’s only the bad ones who become professional.
I’m not what you’d call a Method actor.
As an actor, I had noticed very vividly that very few directors know how to direct actors because they haven’t done it.
A director, I forget who, told me that it takes 30 years to make an actor. And I believe that. You have to learn your craft, learn your trade – and also you have to live a life and experience things.
If there’s anything I’d hate as a son-in-law, it’s an actor; and if there’s anything I think I’d hate worse than an actor as a son-in-law, it’s an English actor.
My take on it, like a filmmaker or actor, is if you have much more colors within your creation, eventually people will appreciate what you’re doing, and the other stuff is secondary, like critiques or even awards or anything else, as long as people enjoy it.
Some of the biggest and most popular movie stars in the world are limited or have constantly done what they do really well. Being versatile is not necessarily the greatest quality for an actor.
‘Boomerang!’ I love that movie just because of Halle Berry, Robin Givens, Eddie Murphy, Grace Jones and Eartha Kitt. There were so many characters. As an actress, to see African-American actors be so diverse was different from what I was used to seeing.
My biggest problem in my life is I’m cheap and I didn’t hire a publicist. In every awkward interview, normally actors get these things scripted.
If I couldn’t be an actor, I would only consider being an astronaut, a sea otter, or a gynecologist.
A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself.
Next year, if no one gives me any work, that’s fine. I’m not going to do well anyway. I’m not an actor, I’m just exploiting this industry.
‘Killer Joe’ provides a lot of red meat for the theater. Pam MacKinnon is the perfect director to shepherd a group of actors who share a certain bloodlust.
I was offered and accepted a part in ‘A Few Best Men,’ and then the Australian actor’s union argued that there were too many British actors. And the director decided to lose me.
I’m not the kind of actor that would know what my character had for breakfast last Tuesday.
I think a lot of actors are overly concerned about being well liked in the parts they play.
I’m more of a writer than an actor, and I used to say that I’m mostly an improviser, though I haven’t improvised in awhile.
I always focused on being an actor. I did stand-up briefly, but I also did a lot of dramatic work. But since I’ve been on ‘The Daily Show,’ people think I’m a comedian. That’s not how I see myself.
The ‘Doom’ thing is to be able to come at things with a different point of view. I decided the mask would just add to the mystique of the character as well as make Doom stand out. I though it’d be an easy way for people to see and differentiate between characters, sorta like when an actor gains weight for a role.
I’m forever testing myself. As a person and as an actor, I have no sense of competition.
Some movies I see today have the most dramatic plot points but the actors are not playing them dramatically.
It’s like an athlete. He has a string of hot years, and then he fades into nothingness. The actor doesn’t necessarily fade into nothingness. After his hot years, he fades into a different category.
I’m fortunate enough to have had an opportunity to do a range of stuff, and the thing I admire most in actors is versatility, those that morph and change, those kind of chameleon actors who are unrecognisable from one job to another. That’s something that I aspire to establish myself.
I’ve often said there’s two kinds of actors. There’s a more gregarious type and the shy type.
As actors, you always have that moment thinking you’ve been absolutely terrible or a fraud.
I am blessed to have made my career as an actor for a decade now and I’m grateful for that. It could arguably have gone better in ways and it certainly could have gone worse, but you have to keep fueling the fire.
