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As an actor, you have many tools - your body, your voice, your emotions, mentally. In film, you have your eyes because they communicate your thought process. In fact, generally in film, what you don't say is more important than what you say. That's not so much the case for stage.
My father being in the movie business, I thought being an actor would be great. But when I started singing to people in coffeehouses, you know, singing folk music and then, later, singing songs that I started to write myself, I felt more than an affinity for it. I felt a calling.
I had, like, two goals in my career: One was to try to get into 'Second City.' When I moved to Chicago, my goal was to try to work at 'Second City.' And beyond that, my goal was to make enough money as an actor to not do anything else but act, not have to go and wait tables again.
I'm not an Adonis, that's for damn sure. I've never really thought of myself that way, and it doesn't matter to me. My favorite actors aren't Adonises. Dustin Hoffman is a flawed-looking man; he's amazing to me. Tom Hanks is flawed-looking; people love him. Same with Gene Hackman.
I was certainly a better actor after my five years in Hollywood. I had learned to be natural - never to exaggerate. I found I could act on the stage in just the same way as I had acted in a studio: using my ordinary voice, eliminating gestures, keeping everything extremely simple.
I admire many actors, though I don't think there's anyone whose career I would want to mirror sort of by the beats. What I'm really looking to do is constantly defy expectations. I'm very curious to see if you can actually have a character actor and a movie star's career combined.
I struggle to watch myself in any scene, to be honest. What's done is done. I wish I was able to watch myself, as it would really help me develop as an actor. But I'm not brave enough. It's a difficult thing to do - looking at yourself as this utterly different person on a screen.
My father was an actor. Both of my older brothers are actors. My younger sister is an actress. For me, that's my job; that's my craft. But then all through school and through drama school, I was gigging and running nights and playing in bands, and I just didn't want to let that go.
Salman is a paradox. He has this image of a moody actor who turns up late for shoots or doesn't turn up at all. And then there is this image of him as a kind-hearted, loving, and giving man. From my experience with him, I have to say that I have never seen the bad boy image at all.
Over a period of time, if you have a successful show, then you have a devoted audience. I feel you owe something to them. That goes for everybody - writers, camera operators, actors, studio executives, etc. Sadly, I've realized it's a responsibility that very few people live up to.
My job as a character actor is to make me fit the character, to serve the character. To present this human being who turns up in a piece of film or entertainment that's going, you know, exist as if it might exist after the film is finished and it existed before the film has started.
I feel like because I've done more gay characters, gay scenes, or gay projects than most straight actors, people see it as some sort of mission. It's more of a case-by-case basis, and just trying to capture figures that I love. I guess that a lot of the figures that I love were gay.
You never saw Peter Sellers the actor trying to make you laugh. All he was doing was the character. What I'm saying is that I don't think you should know you're in a movie. I don't like it when actors are winking at the audience and saying, 'Right, isn't this funny? Are you with me?'
I got a call from my agent saying you have an offer to voice a cartoon by the name of 'My Little Pony.' And that's pretty much what went in my ear. So I asked him the three questions that actors always ask. I need to see the script, when and how much, which were legitimate questions.
When we did 'The Jewel In The Crown,' we filmed in India first so the actors had an idea of what the heat was like, what it did to you - it slows you down; it's weighty: the air that you breathe is full of humidity. You are aware of the fact that you're not in a studio in Manchester.
I'm wide open to getting married, but actors are not easy people to date. You end up sharing that person with this other mistress that is their career. I very much like the traditional courtship method of making a date. That's what they do in normal places, but Hollywood's not normal.
Actors are observers. They're trying to have an understanding of human sensibility. And how do you have that accurate observation if you regard yourself as someone of great importance? When you're the one constantly being observed, because they view you as a celebrity? It's all wrong.
As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner's medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it's three-Michelin's stars, there's no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.
I always hated when the studios just kind of said that anybody can act. You look at people like Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda - and I'm just talking about the male actors - there aren't a lot who can act. It's a very special talent, and I wish it were recognized as a very special talent.
I knew I didn't want to pursue an academic career at all, which, of course, my father would have loved me to have done. I didn't want to go to university. The only other thing I could do was paint, and so I went to art school because they couldn't conceive of how one would be an actor.
I think the success of a film is very important to an actor. It depends on how many people go to watch your movies; the more the merrier. Nobody wants to do a film for five people. You work so hard that millions of people watch the movie; this is directly related to box office success.
I don't know what's more embarrassing, these musicians and actors talking about politics in interviews or the media actually giving them credibility about it. It's absurd that a celebrity could speak out on the economy or politics with no more justification than a hit album or a movie.
Sometimes you take a job for the money, sometimes you take it for the location, sometimes you take it for the script; there are just a number of reasons, and ultimately what you see is the whole landscape of it. But I can tell you from behind the scenes - that's what it is, as an actor.
I thought being in the wheelchair might be kind of limiting for me as an actor. It turned out cool in a lot of ways. Of course, at the end of the day, I can get up out of the chair and go home, but I'm very acutely aware that most people can't, so I try to give the situation that depth.
I was in a movie with Marlon Brando. Now, I didn't have any scenes with Marlon Brando, but I had scenes with Martin Sheen and was around Dennis Hopper, who was a child actor in the studio system and was enamored of James Dean, as was Martin, and they were all sort of disciples of Brando.
When you're an actor in grade school, high school, college, whatever, you start to realize what you're really good at, what you're kinda good at, what you're okay at, and you start to compartmentalize. But if you know yourself and what you're capable of, it's just a matter of opportunity.
In daily life, I'm not a heavy user anyway, but I'm extra careful online because of the kids who look up to me. That's the fun part of being an actor - that kids like you - because they are very pure and transparent in their likes and dislikes. There's no filter like the ones on Instagram.
Why would anyone want to be famous, certainly not me. My only goal in an acting career is to be able to work full time as an actor, filmmaker. When I get to that level, which I will, in this business where I can spend one hundred percent of my time honing my craft, then I will be complete.
I was not the producer of 'Vaanaprastham' earlier. The first producers backed out when they became doubtful about the monetary benefits. I do not blame them. But as an actor, I wanted to make the film. So, I told Shaji sir that I would produce the film. It was only then we started shooting.
What I mean is that none of my talents had a - what's that great word - rubric. A singer, an actor, a dancer - there was nothing I could really say I was. The writing came much later. And, actually, thank God, because if I had said I'm a singer, I would really have just had one thing to do.
As soon as you start looking into roles which are specifically Asian, Black, or Latina, you start looking at stereotypes. That's the issue minority actors face - it's not that we don't want to play our ethnicities; it's that, often, the role that's written for our ethnicity is a stereotype.
Having a child makes you strong and gives you chutzpah. It relaxed my attitude to the job; my center of focus shifted, which I think is very helpful, because even if you're not a very indulgent actor you spend a lot of time thinking about yourself. I don't think that is particularly healthy.
If I had the gift of Jerry Seinfeld, of Bill Cosby, of Lewis Black, these instinctively brilliant comic minds, then you go that route! But you gotta know your limitations. I'm more of an actor, more of a process guy. I did Tom Snyder, just as Danny Aykroyd did on 'SNL.' I did it in the club.
I was amazed by how much you have to think about as a director. As an actor, you don't have to think about much at all, as it turns out. It's very easy. And then when you step into the director's role, there's this whole universe of stuff that you have to pay attention to that's amazing to me.
When I was about 12, I came home from middle school and told my parents I wanted to be an actor. My father didn't say it to me, but he told my mom, 'No. I'm not going to allow that. He'll starve to death.' I grew up in a small town in Illinois where being an actor was not something people did.
My mother and father raised their eyebrows at first when I said I wanted to be an actor because I was in this industrial city. My dad had done a bit of boxing on the side, but he was a welder first and foremost. I was 17, and I said, 'I want to be an actor.' They worried it was a waste of time.
I've been a big believer in musicians turned actor, going back to Sinatra winning the Oscar for 'From Here To Eternity.' David Bowie in 'Man Who Fell to Earth,' Kris Kristofferson's been great in a bunch of films. Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, I thought was great in 'Precious.'
I remember being on this film once, and people said, 'You're not on Instagram or Facebook - what's your deal?' They said, 'In this industry, if you want to do well, people want to invest in who you are.' I said, 'I'm an actor, not a celebrity - they watch my acting, and hopefully that's enough.'
My father was a restaurant man, laundry man in his lifetime. And I've often wondered how and why did I become an actor? Where did I get the so-called talent to express myself? And I look back, and I see that my mother was very animated. I can remember that she used to, what she called 'bei zhu.'
I recognize that every role I play, I'm not going to play someone that has a ministry or that is a Christian, and I don't think that's what God has called me to do. The gift and talent that He's given me as an actor, director, producer is to entertain, sometimes to inform, most times to inspire.
There are two jobs. There is being an actor, and there is being a celebrity. Some people are really good at both. Some people are really good celebrities and terrible actors, and some people are really good actors and terrible celebrities. Hopefully, I am a really good actor and an OK celebrity.
Anger, pain and a tinge of joy are the recursive emotions I have been waking up to ever since I read reports on how Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed women in Hollywood for years. Some of these women are actors I have been longing to co-star with even if they reside in another part of the globe.
Talent is to actors what luck is to card players. It's not really anything; it's just a fictitious word that people have created and labeled things. Talent is like, you know, I never really believed in talent, I believed in drive and determination and preparation, but talent is sort of like luck.
When they offered me 'Wayne's World 2,' they said: 'We were going to give this to another actor, then we thought we'd see you'. I just thought: 'Surely you always had me in mind for that just in the way that it's written?', but they never admitted it. It was a wonderful gig to do. Really special.
Over the years, I think, people - actors, writers, whatever - lose their frame of reference. Their frame of reference is based on somebody else who did this or did that. Performances. So it just becomes a reflection of what already works. Like a warm-up. And that's an invitation to be inauthentic.
If you want to be an actor, you must have total, ruthless commitment to your art. Don't be ambitious for fame or TV or movies. Art is a jealous mistress and will brook no competitors. Study all the time. Never stop reading. Never stop learning speeches. It will fill you up - define and refine you.
A screenplay is really an instruction manual, and it can be interpreted in any number of ways. The casting, the choice of location, the costumes and make-up, the actors' reading of a line or emphasis of a word, the choice of lens and the pace of the cutting - these are all part of the translation.
I remember going to the audition for 'Corrie.' I wasn't an actor - what they're often looking for in these rooms is a character, not what's on the page. They want to see what you are going to bring. So somehow, I got the job on 'Corrie.' For the first time in a while, someone really believed in me.
The percentage of people that go to drama college in the U.K. is probably just like anywhere in the world. It's a very hard business to work in. They say that, at any one time, there's only 5% of actors in the world that are actually working and getting paid, which is a shocking percentage, really.
I am always in self-doubt... every moment of my filmmaking. I am supremely confident when the story is being written and everything is in our head. But the moment we get into the filmmaking, I start doubting myself - from the camera angle to the re-recording to getting the actors to do their shots.