Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I've done a number of things based on real people or true stories or based on books, and I'm a great believer that you have to be true to the script.
I actually really love working with young actors because they're so responsive and instinctive, and it's a much less honed craft that they're employing.
One of the things I love, more than anything, is jumping around and playing lots of different parts. I love the variety of playing different characters.
After writing a page, Hemingway would let it float to the ground. He never crumpled pages - he believed that if you crumpled them, you'd be insane in a year.
I think I am more attracted to characters with a subtext, whatever that is and they don't necessarily have to be virtuous, but they have to at least be human.
You won't find a better young actor than Jaeden Lieberher. I ended up having one of the best times with him, really. Going to work with him every day was a treat.
When I look back, if I'd played something differently, it might not have gone the way it did. So I don't feel like going back to my twenties and changing anything.
As a teenager I was crazy about David Bowie. He was a huge inspiration for me. I dressed a little bit crazily in school and dyed my hair every colour under the sun.
I'm English and I'm used to coming from a world of period dramas, where there's a very polite restraint to everything. Everybody's sort of sitting in drawing rooms.
The idea of goodies and baddies has always fascinated me, and what people consider to be a goodie or a baddie, because I've never seen any of my characters as baddies.
If you explode onto the scene at a very young age, there are so many people pulling you in different directions. It takes time to recalibrate and see what's important.
You go back to those films of the '40s and '50s and hear the dialogue, the way the people played off each other, the wordplay. I think we've really lost that in movies.
You go back to those films of the '40s and '50s and hear the dialogue, the way the people played off each other - the wordplay. I think we've really lost that in movies.
I'm sort of one of those weird actors who whenever I do a play, I think, "Oh, we should film this." As opposed to have to belt it out of ourselves in a theater auditorium.
I'm sort of one of those weird actors who whenever I do a play, I think, 'Oh, we should film this,' as opposed to have to belt it out of ourselves in a theater auditorium.
I don't like it when people are trying too hard. That goes for clothes, for acting, for everything. It's just not good when it seems like you're making too much of an effort.
I don't do facials or any of that stuff, but my workout regime does tend to depend on whether I have to take my top off in my next film because otherwise I know I'm too heavy.
You come ready to work when you know that you are going to get a couple of gos and it. It kind of galvanizes everything and there is something about it that keeps it very alive.
I'm one of those actors where usually I'll read a script, and then I'll have a flurry of notes. I'll ask a hundred questions about things, and really get in there and examine it.
When I was younger, people used to say you only really prove yourself as an actor on stage. And I disagree with that. Some of the finest acting I've ever come across has been for film.
I don’t mind looking like I need a good wash and a good meal... Any actor who starts taking ‘sex symbol’ seriously or thinks of themselves as a sex symbol has got some serious problems.
One of the views of the [actor's] job is that whatever age you are, there's a role that's about who you are and where you are. There are parts for that age that you can bring things to.
A huge part of acting in movies is appetite. You do your best work when you've got a lot of appetite and you really want to embrace something. When you get tired, you don't have that hunger.
I have a problem with a lot of men's fragrances because they are very strong. Somebody somewhere thinks that masculine means powerful smells, and I find them overbearing and not very pleasant.
I guess I'm not that metrosexual. My bathroom cabinet is hardly overflowing with products. I only really have my stuff for shaving. I can't honestly say I moisturise, though I probably should.
I believe that we live in a time of fractured families where maybe fathers aren't getting enough time to see their kids because life's complications and hardships get in the way of those things.
There's something to play if there's conflict going on. Whatever that conflict is, that's where drama is; if the character is grappling with something you've got something to play, there's layers to it.
The theater's a live thing, and film is, to some extent, a discipline where you're putting everything together and trying to execute something exactly. You do it away from people and then you present it at the end.
I had to ride a horse once. In 'King Arthur.' I said I could ride, but I had to call for lessons on the day the deal was signed. I started out on this little chunky thing and slowly moved up. It was months of work.
If you are making a script based on a book it can be frustrating going back to the source novel, because you're turning the story into a totally different thing; the narrative of film is different from that of a book.
I'm always very aware of the physical challenges of work. I train much more than I did when I was in my twenties, and I've done some very physical films, and I always get properly prepared for them and get as fit as I can.
The medical operations are so challenging because they're so technical, as well. I assumed before we started that we would do the classic thing, when it comes to the operations, that we would do all of these inserts with real doctors.
Very often when you see families it's all perfect and neat, and parenting isn't like that. You do have constant negotiations. Things are ever developing and ever changing, and you constantly have to evaluate how you deal with your kids.
For an actor, it's very important to get a clear idea of what a director wants, and their intention for what they want to get out of a scene and how they want to shoot it. Having that knowledge is really valuable, for an actor. It means you can deliver more.
Something I don't like seeing in other people is naked ambition, when somebody is really pushing hard to get to where they want to be. That's the way I look at that word - like you must be stepping on someone to get there. And I've never been comfortable with that.
A lot of the projects that I do, I like to be involved with earlier. I just feel that, certainly from an acting point of view, it's easier to do my job, if I'm included in what the intentions are, for why people are doing what they're doing, especially with a director.
No matter who the character is and how big their role, that each person in the story is a human being and deserves respect. Even if they're in the story for ten seconds, I didn't want you to just see them as this entity passing through that's serving all of the other people.
The thing about Hemingway that people forget is that all the stuff he did was at a time where people weren't traveling that much. At 19 he travels to Italy. He goes to the Spanish Civil War. He goes to China, he goes to Africa so at that time to travel that much is really incredible.
When I started in the theater, the joy for me was playing different parts, and I get set alight by different people and different worlds. The biggest joy for me is jumping around and going from that to this to that, never feeling that I'm any one thing - because I'm not, and we as people aren't.
Film is very much about capturing the essence of things - if you feel it, and you've got the right person shooting it, it'll come across. Theater's a different animal; it's physically different and requires a different discipline. In the theater, you're mining the same material, constantly honing the same thing, executing it and keeping it alive and fresh.
When you're doing those operation scenes, you not only have to be on top of the dialogue and the rhythm of the dialogue and what's happening dramatically, but you've got to technically get the rhythm right, so that everything is fitting with the dialogue at the right time. And you're performing the operation to the audience that's watching it. Thackery has to present it, as well. In some ways, that's the most challenging.