I do like the idea of doing something different, maybe doing something that's more like a genre film. And there are certain actors that I'd like to work with that would go along with working with a bigger budget.

I think as an actor you can feel when something's right and when something's resonating. I don't think that there's necessarily a right and a wrong. I think it's just a matter of being honest and telling a story.

The person that made me want to make movies, and the reason I do films, is Bruce Lee. He was an incredible actor, and he had a lot of charisma. Handsome, action, you know, everything was there. I loved Bruce Lee.

There's no set designer like your own self; you furnish the mise-en-scène, the wardrobe, the physical proportions of the actor, and the setting. Then radio is doing something that television very rarely achieves.

I want to see something that I've never seen before, so how can I tell that actor what that is? I'm not trying to construct a document or situation that is what I want, because what I want is something new to me.

I've always felt that I would rather see an actor, writer, or musician's work, rather than actually know the person. If you know too much about an artist, it somehow lessens their ability to do their work as well.

London's Windmill Theater grew famous for its nude tableaux. During the 1940 and 1950, this theater overcame the objections of censors by agreeing that none of its naked actors would move any part of his/her body.

The whole concept of stage fright is fascinating. Actors get stage fright, but they wouldn't be on the stage in the first place if they just succumbed to it. There's this love/hate relationship with the spotlight.

I'm never certain of a performance - my own or the other actors' - or the script or anything... But to me it seems there's only one place in the world the camera can be, and the decision usually comes immediately.

He wouldn't talk to me for two months. I was like, 'What an ass**le.' Actors are used to getting their way and to treating women like objects. "[on Wesley Snipes after she reports he made unreturned passes at her]

I bring excitement on the sets. I'm an exciting actor, overrated, exaggerated. But I'm not an unexciting actor. I excite people. I never lose hope. If I feel that a film is going wrong somewhere, I do even better.

Truthfully, most directors don't direct actors. Every actor is different, so when you're asked, "How do you approach an actor?," it depends on the actor. With some, you do nothing. With some, you're very specific.

When I was 13 years old, a professional theater company in my town needed a kid actor. I auditioned, and I got the part, so for just a few weeks I became a member of the company and I met some professional actors.

It is so rare as an actor to be allowed the chance to revisit a role and to go back to a character that you already built, and lived inside, and understood. To take it further to another stage is a huge privilege.

There wasn't even a movie theater in the town. Nothing. Not even any fast food chains of any kind. Regardless, I knew that I was going to leave and become an actor, and be in film and television, and I've done it.

I'm called a folk singer, and I'm not too sure about that. I went about my life approaching music not from the point of view of a singer, but from the point of view of an actor. That's how I first started to sing.

That's the best thing about being an actor. If you're in a baseball movie, you walk away knowing way more about baseball, or if you're in a sci-fi film, you learn way more about Comic-Con, and so I loved all that.

Being a conservative union member is almost like being an actor in Hollywood: You don't dare say it, or you might be injured on the job, or you might be laid off, or your family might have something happen to them.

There are plenty of directors who work with the same actors over and over, many more times than I have. Like I have worked with Bill Nighy more times than I have worked with Kate, but I'm not married to Bill Nighy.

If you dissect my career as an actor, and you can pull out more than enough of those type of movies, from The Hurt Locker and The Town and so on and so forth, and that's kind of where our wheelhouse is. We love it.

As an actor in the classroom, you're revealing so much, and teachers are, you know, they're just critiquing like a painting or a piece of work; it's like, it's you, and it's your emotions that they're working with.

Natural politicians are skilled actors, recreating reality, adjusting and ad-libbing, synthesizing the scenes, saying the same thing over and over again and making it seem that theyare saying it for the first time.

I had a lot of time before I actually got my break so to speak. I was building websites for other actors. I worked in a grocery store back in the little village where I grew up but I found it mind-numbingly boring.

I'm just an actor. It's the way the script is written, and it's easy. I don't have think about it. When you receive the script, you know pretty well how to play it, apart from little technicalities like the accent.

I sort of have open invitations from a lot of people to do TV. But it's very hard for me to do roles in sitcoms and movies because I'm not a great actor, so if the material isn't good, I'm in torment while I do it.

I think one of the biggest things is the budget.For a studio, becomes a very big challenge to make sure that movie will work even better on every level. As an actor I don't think in those terms when I make a movie.

I want to do a movie, but it has to be the right movie, whether it's independent or a studio movie. I'm much more open to being a supporting actor. At the age of 60, I'll be second fiddle. Fine. I'm happy to do it.

As a comic, it's anti-comedy to be known. I think a lot of comedic actors get lost in this world of Hollywood and all this stuff. They lose what brought them there in the first place. I'm very trepidatious about it.

Actors are pulled in so many different directions that unless you both are absolutely into it through thick and thin and completely sure about each other, it's just hard. I've decided I'll never date an actor again.

When I go on the set, I'm so rushed. When I see the actors at rehearsal, when I love it, I want to keep the mood - my mood and the actors' mood also. So I have to push the crew faster. I don't want to lose the mood.

The actor's relationship to the crew is really a big dynamic that influences everything. When actors are assholes, it becomes problematic. When actors are great and sensitive and prepared, it makes a huge difference.

I went through the natural process that most actors go through. I brought myself out here, had an audition on a Wednesday; then had a call-back on Thursday, had a call-back on Friday and I had it by Friday afternoon.

I had always been interested in screenwriting, ever since I could write things down as a child. Obviously, I started as an actor, professionally, but screenwriting was always something that I had a great interest in.

The celebrity mill is so active these days that actors can make careers out of being themselves, and I don't know that I want to. I think I'm just figuring out how to make a career out of not being myself. It's hard.

The art of procreation and the members employed therein are so repulsive, that if it were not for the beauty of the faces and the adornments of the actors and the pent-up impulse, nature would lose the human species.

I was selling real estate at the time, in Pacific Palisades, California, so imagine that: getting a note and a bottle of champagne from Jack Nicholson when I'd barely made a dime as an actor. It really kept me going.

What I really mean is that actors do the interview process because they have to. It's a good bargain: If I can do this part then I'll sell it. I just wish it wasn't me who had to do it because it feels very unnatural.

John [Cassavetes] loved actors. He gave them a lot of freedom. So if something came up that a certain actor just felt at the moment and said - that kind of improvisation he would accept. He gave very little direction.

I mean, if President Reagan could be an actor and become a President, if Michael Douglas is your next choice, maybe I could become an actor. And I've got a good pension; I can work cheap, which is unusual around here.

I don't like to be challenged in the way that often happens, where somebody writes something and then you, as an actor, are expected to really make it up in your imagination. That's not really an ideal way of working.

It is only the untalented director who imagines him or herself in every part, wants his or her own thoughts and emotions portrayed; it is only the untalented who make their own limitations those of the actors as well.

People in the CIA, they marry each other. They're like actors! We have to travel without much warning to far-flung places, and it's very hard to communicate what our experiences are like to those in the outside world.

I always felt so much more comfortable in the Western. The minute I got a horse and a hat and a pair of boots on, I felt easier. I didn't feel like I was an actor anymore. I felt like I was the guy out there doing it.

It's not a matter of becoming a superstar. Fame and money aren't the purpose of all this. No actor's going to say, 'I don't want to be famous.' But the main purpose for doing what I'm doing is the passion in the work.

In general, the few directors that I've worked with that I really respect have taught me a lot about who I am and they've opened me up as an actor. I want to take some of that to apply it to when I'm directing actors.

I don't really even know what Twitter is. I know that might sound wierd to some people. I don't use social media. I make music, so I use social media... it's more helpful for me when I'm making music than as an actor.

When we talk about climate, we need to do everything we can to set the stage before the actors come on. And they may only have one chance at success. We should keep thinking: How do we maximize that chance of success?

When I'm working, it's those actors (you know who you are) who sit around moaning that their trailer isn't big enough, or how bad their facilities are. I can't be doing with any of that, I just like to get on with it.

I don't write shows with dialogue where actors have to memorize dialogue. I write the scenes where we know everything that's going to happen. There's an outline of about seven or eight pages, and then we improvise it.

I never make suggestions. I really don't. I know a lot of actors who get a part and then they dissect it and they want to change it and they want to add stuff. I'm always amazed and so impressed by actors who do that.

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