I’m such a loser; I don’t really go out. None of my friends are really actors, so in that regard, I still have all the same friends and do all the same things.
I am not one of those actors who will abandon my flagship serial, my main claim to fame, just because I’ve done a hit movie.
It is my hope that I will grow as an actor through the first sageuk of my career.
Fear, anxiety and neurosis: that’s just in the suitcase when you’re an actor.
It’s a scary thing going into the workforce with a $50,000 debt and you’ve been trained as a classical theatre actor. There’s always a depression in the theatre.
At the end of the day, I’m an actor. I’m not here to sell other stuff or use off-screen things to generate whether or not I work. If I’m any good, I’ll work; if I’m not, I won’t.
Good actors I’ve worked with all started out making faces in a mirror, and you keep making faces all your life.
I’m – you know, I’m not a good actor.
The first thing I wrote was a one-act play that got accepted at a one-act play festival, and I was in it along with Nathan Lane and a couple of other very good actors.
To grasp the full significance of life is the actor’s duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.
My advice to an aspiring actor would be to never stop learning or working for what you want. Nothing comes easy, ever, if you want something, you have to work for it. By working for it I mean work on your craft, learn from people who have something to teach. It’s just like anything else, practice makes perfect.
One scene is enough for a good actor to leave his mark in any film.
I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.
When I do a voiceover now, there are always a few people I’ve borrowed bits off, whether it’s their hats or facial hair, who’ll say: ‘That’s so funny; it’s obviously based on this guy.’ You think, ‘It ain’t: it’s you.’ Actors never think characters are based on them.
It’s what I learn from the great actors that I work with. Stillness. That’s all and that’s the hardest thing.
I moved to L.A., and I lived in the Oakland Apartments, which is this notorious hub for actor children and their stage moms. For the first few years that I lived there, Hilary Duff and Frankie Muniz frequented the apartments. I was much younger than them at the time.
I’m sure all actors have trouble. The guy who always plays the funny guy, he wants to be taken seriously. And there’s the action guy who wants to do serious stuff. Everyone’s grass is greener.
General Zia-ul-Haq, a dictator and unscrupulous political actor, used Islam as a pretext for waging war in Afghanistan and adopting an aggressive stance towards India. By advancing a more orthodox version of Islam, he was able to hold on to a repressive regime and quell any opposition.
From my experience, I would say no: actors of East Asian descent don’t get the opportunities white actors do. I know that’s inherently a problem in a country that produces a lot of period drama, but I have to fight so hard to get parts that don’t have something to do with China.
I am waiting for the right story to tell. Just like ‘Man of Tai Chi’ just seemed to be the right story to tell. So I’m looking for that. Because I really love directing. I love developing the story. I love actors. I love the cinema of it, the way that you tell a story visually.
My favourite actor is Daniel Day Lewis. He’s the finest actor in Hollywood. I’ve studied his performances.
There are so many great actors, but I really have a lot of respect for Johnny Depp. I’ve seen a lot of movies with him in it and, even if it’s a film that wasn’t as successful as you thought it would be, I’ve never seen him put in a bad performance. My favorite actors from history have to be Steve McQueen and James Dean.
Cyber-enabled theft of trade secrets by state actors in China has emerged as a major threat to our economic and, thus, national security.
I have never liked Morrissey, and I still don’t. I think it’s hilarious, actually, what things I’ve heard about him, what he’s really like, and his public persona is so different. He’s such an actor.
Filmmaking is not a one man show. It is not like I’m thinking something and they are expressing it. I try to pull the actor in and together we try to get the expression. It is not my thinking alone, it is our thinking. The actor also becomes a part of the thought process.
A good director creates an environment, which gives the actor the encouragement to fly.
In my own case, I’m an artist, and I’m really interested in expanding the vocabulary of human action, and basically empowering people through interactivity. I want people to discover themselves as actors, as creative actors, by having interactive experiences.
For everybody, the tide comes in, the tide goes out – if you’re an actor, particularly.
I was very excited and interested as a background dancer or as a theatre actor or when I was working on TV, or even on the film which didn’t do well, like ‘Byomkesh.’
You see actors who make family work, but it’s difficult for any woman.
Actors know what actors are insecure about – and they’re all insecure.
A responsive audience is the best encouragement an actor can have.
When I was a kid, I was really into ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘Friday the 13th.’ But as I got older and started working as an actor, I did not really get scared by horror movies as much, so I am not as into them anymore.
As an actor, I’ve always wanted to do characters that would help me find my connection with others and connect all of us together. You always want the energy of the character, the spirit of the person, to enter you. I’ve been doing this for 26 years and some of the things I’ve done are always with me.
Being an actor is actually pretty easy if you can memorize lines.
I grew up in East Germany, so we had to learn Russian in school… everybody hated it. I never thought it would come in handy… And being an actor, I’ve been able to use it quite a bit.
I felt like an ugly duckling back in school. I was a complete tomboy with short hair. Never in my dreams did I imagine that I would walk the ramp with 6-inch heels. My friends can’t believe that I’m an actor, because I was such an introvert in school.
An actor has to be very, very careful, as one of the most wonderful props – and actors love props – is a cigarette. There’s so much to do with it: you can bring it up to your face, play with the smoke. It’s just the greatest – ever since I was 16 and in acting school in England, I’ve been playing around with cigarettes.
There are two schools of thought: There are those actors who explain to you that they know exactly how they’re going to do the part… And then there is the other method, which is to have no method at all. This is mine.
Acting is a trial-and-error business. Every actor has a few movies on their resume that they’re not terribly proud of, but that’s how you learn.
I had a niche. And my niche was that I was brown. So it’s like, ‘Great, I get to go up for all these ‘brown parts.” I call them ‘brown parts’ because that’s what they are. That’s not to be resentful, because I loved playing those parts – I got to meet so many cool actors.
At the end of the day, my biggest fear in life is that I’m gonna wind up being an actor who plays the dad on a TV show like ‘Full House’ or ‘Small Wonder’ or something – I’m, like, the desexualized dad in the show ‘Alf.’
To me, spending millions of dollars recreating the world’s sadness with actors and props and sets – it seems like a kind of arrogant waste of money… Unless, that is, it’s a film about an historical event.
I’ve proven I’m courageous. I’m gutsier than anybody; I’ve got a better imagination than anybody; I’m essentially more creative than any other actor I know, and I’ve proven I take risks. I don’t think I need to prove anything to myself any more.
I love working with children and this young boy, Thomas Sangster, is quite a remarkable young actor. He raises your game, you know. He certainly raised mine.
An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of his violin. What if everybody jumped on his violin?
It’s very hard to be a good actor, you know. It’s easy to be cute.
A, if you wanna be an actor, you don’t pose for paparazzi.
My career has been a roller coaster ride. And every actor experiences that phase.
It’s OK if Tim McGraw goes and does a movie, and it’s OK if Justin Timberlake does a movie, but it’s not OK for an actor to become a singer. I never understood that.
Being an actor, you can get spoilt a little bit: car services come and pick you up, you get put up in nice hotels, people fetch you coffee, and so on. It is wonderful, but you can get lost in that world pretty quickly and start believing that it is real life.
Even the finest actors will have great difficulty showing somebody’s loneliness. To put an actor on a chair and ask him to do nothing and yet tell the viewer everything about the character, it’s a difficult task.
I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.
There are certain expectations that are put on you as a child actor, but mainly it’s just turn up and say your lines with a lot of energy and a cute smile.
