Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I've done so many movies that are bad, with material that's so shallow, that you instantly scratch the surface, and there's nothing underneath.
When you consider the many ways in which people have to make a living every day when they wake up, I figure that eating 20 eggs isn't that bad.
You can start with a great director and great actors and have a great script - and it still just doesn't work. It's kind of a mystery how that happens.
Some people go to their job. That's the job they have; they have to do it. They hate their boss and their coworkers, this and that. It's hard to get along.
I was really short in high school. I was stuck on the bench in the baseball team, so I just thought I'd try out theater, and that was the last time I did sports.
It's part of the actor's job to show up with a head full of steam, to have their own take on this. So that way, you're not relying on, 'OK, tell me how to do it.'
The first movie was mostly about George and Julia. This one is mostly about me and Catherine and our love story and our whole history. So it's a very different movie.
When people ask me why I don't eat meat or any other animal products, I say, 'Because they are unhealthy and they are the product of a violent and inhumane industry.'
I moved out to LA, got an agent, started auditioning. I didn't know anything about how it worked. And since I was really bad, luckily, I didn't get any of those parts.
In New York, as long as you're not peeing in someone's doorway, everyone thinks you're a gentleman. I feel like my behavior goes over better on the streets of New York.
The first dog I had was owned by an abusive couple. He was very skittish. He wouldn't let me hold him. It was explained to me that it was because of how he was treated.
When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression.
I guess people think if you're well-known, it's perfectly fine to say anything you want. I don't know why that is. But it shouldn't be, because everybody has families and lives.
Does celebrity interest anyone? It's definitely not appealing to me. I think anyone who's had any real exposure to it would probably regret ever having even entertained the idea.
After high school, I drove out to L.A. with a friend of mine who had just graduated also, and I started auditioning. I got an agent, but it was all 'Saved By the Bell' auditions.
I've seen 'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' about 25 times each, so I like all kinds of movies, but I'm drawn, as an actor, to dramas about humans living lives I can relate to.
I read the book and I think, "Well, this is the movie we're going to make," and then someone else reads it, and they take a completely different movie from it. And both are valid.
I don't want to be known as someone who is deliberately trying to do things that are not commercial! That is not a good reputation to have when you're trying to be a working actor.
I believe that any kind of mistreatment of anyone for any reason is unacceptable and abhorrent, and everyone deserves to be treated with respect in the workplace and anywhere else.
For people who have... had curve balls thrown at them, it is easier to digest change and digest change in other people. Change only scares the small-minded. The small-minded and me.
One thing I don't do anymore is read or pay attention to the critical response, which is a bummer because when I started, and when I was in school, I loved to read old film criticism.
I think there's a certain amount of pressure depending on how demanding the part is, depending on how great the material is. I feel a certain amount of pressure to rise to the occasion.
I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.
The way people appear in the gossip papers, as they're depicted as celebrities, it's not often much like who they are. The more people I meet, the more that's true. Sometimes, they're worse.
My mom has a good way of engaging me in a conversation about the choices I make, listening, being objective and open-minded, and respecting those choices so long as they don't put me in danger.
My first exposure to TV, film, theater, the idea of what acting was, is I was a little kid, and my mom's best friend was a local casting director in Cambridge, Mass. Her name was Patty Collinge.
Sometimes in the middle of a presidential campaign, there's a political movie, and people are sick of hearing about politics, and they don't want to see that movie. They'd rather see "Godzilla."
Sometimes you read something, and there's a part of you that remains in an analytical actor place. Am I going to do this movie? Is this a good part for me? Is it not? Can I bring something to this?
When I was a freshman in high school, my drama teacher, an incredible, inspirational genius, the guy who got me into acting, he encouraged me to get the lead in a musical. They didn't have any guys.
I feel like there's an obligation - this sounds terribly pretentious - if you're an artist, to share your own experience in a way that's truthful and honest: 'This is what I have to share; this is my life.'
I have been lucky enough to work with people who inspire me, who I admire and respect, and who have made films - before working with me - that I continually return to over the years because they are so good.
If you look at the paths of other actors, most people have a curve where you hit it and there's a time where you make a lot of money and they let you make your movies, and then they take it away and it's gone.
I like to just keep the land within sight. Nowadays they can tell you if there's a storm three days out. So it's not much of a concern. But I've never been a big boat person. I don't spend a lot of time at sea.
We obsess about celebrities. We create them, build myths around them, and then hunt them and destroy them. I don't know where it's taking us or what it means, but I know we do it. I have seen a lot of it myself.
I live in New York full time. I can't live in L.A., because I fear people think I'm a vagrant there. If you show up in L.A. with your shirt inside out or socks mismatched, people start putting change in your cup.
Part of the criteria for doing a project is that it's scary or challenging because at some point you go, 'It's too scary; it's too challenging. I don't want to do it.' But things that seem easy are never any fun.
I love getting ready to do a scene, and thinking about it, and talking about it. But the rest of the time, I'm so nervous and obsessed. I'm just tearing my hair out in the trailer. The whole time I'm really tense.
Sometimes I pick parts because I think, 'OK, it scares me,' and that's an indication it's going to be a good movie for me to do. Sometimes that leaves me in a terrible... Well, it doesn't always pan out, you know?
What is acceptable in our culture, I think, is really detrimental. I think we ought to have a little more ownership over the kind of material and the content that we put in front of people, especially young people.
Sometimes I feel like every movie I make could be the last. I know that's not really the case, but if I think about it that way and I'm very careful, then maybe I can build a career, movie by movie, that I'm happy with.
In my movies, there has been little to do in the way of animal rights. I have never worked in a movie with animals. No horse-riding, no trained dogs, lions, bears. A few actors, but what could I do? We had to have them.
I knew it would be hard work, but that's the reason you're an actor. If you're a bricklayer, you don't want to just show up at someone's house and put a little row of bricks around their garden. You want to build a building.
I feel like whenever I do a movie, people think, 'Well, that's good, but that's probably the best he'll do.' I sort of bang and bang and kick in a door, and people say, 'Now a million doors will open for you.' And they don't.
What I learned on 'To Die For,' I learned over the years that followed, when some memory from the shoot would bubble up to the surface of my mind, and I could see it from a new perspective. I would usually cringe when that happened.
When I was young, I asked my priest how you could get to Heaven and still protect yourself from all the evil in the world. He told me what God said to his children. You are sheep among wolves. Be wise as serpents, yet innocent as doves.
I do think people do pick movies that reveal something about them that they aren't always aware of. If you ask them what kind of an actor they think they are, they'll probably tell you something different than what they've actually done.
The first thing that I remember auditioning for was a weather commercial in Boston, and I got the job. The idea of the commercial was that you ought to watch the weather in the morning so that you know what's gonna come later in the day.
They wanted me to do Scream 2, and I hate talking about movies I turned down, because it sounds judgmental. There's nothing wrong with horror movies. I enjoy watching them. The main reason I turn a part down is if I think I won't be good.
I am in the process of starting a nonprofit organization that gives rescued animals a home in a simulated wild environment and, for those who have been tested on, who are disabled, aggressive, etc., their own space to live out their days.
There isn't any sibling rivalry; I think we have very different, very individual career paths and have never really thought that way. He's my brother. I only have one, and we're very close. We wouldn't ever allow that stuff affect our relationship.