With actors like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman and Harrison Ford, what made them such icons is that even in dramatic movies, their characters had a sense of humor.
It's horrid to be called a Shakespearean actor because that's incredibly limiting, and we love acting. We like telling stories; anything that excites us we want to be a part of. Science fiction is fun, too!
I get told a lot that I'm kind of carving my own path. That there are not many actors who are out and are able to play straight and gay, and everyone's OK with it.
Mum worked as a secretary for Orson Welles for what sounded like a very miserable year. Her brother was the actor Jeremy Brett, who became famous for playing Sherlock Holmes. He was an absolutely lovely man. Very exciting and glamorous, he'd always make me feel amazing and full of confidence, like I'd picked the right thing to do in life.
I'd done plays in middle school, done some for the church in high school, but I had no intention of ever being a professional actor.
I'm the girl that waits for the director to say, 'I like that,' or 'Can you boost it up?,' or 'Can you pull it down?' I'm that kind of actor. I started in theater, so that's the feedback that I'm accustomed to. It's the feedback that I really thrive off of.
I think we're very lucky that there is a tradition of British actors working in America and being respected in America, and I've always liked Kate Winslet and her work and respected her.
One of the things that I'd like to get back to that I did as a younger actor was to work on, you know, a rep season for a summer where you did two or three Shakespeares, and you'd do a couple of either new plays or classic plays, and you did a different one almost every night.
I don't come from an artistic family, so I didn't know what theater was. I was working on Wall Street in the '90s, and I went to see 'Appointment With a High-Wire Lady' at Ensemble Studio Theatre, and it affected me so deeply. It changed everything I thought about the arts. I quit banking and became an actor.
Since I was 18, I've been under orders from magazines and newspapers - chiefly The New York Times and Rolling Stone - to step into the lives of musicians, actors, and artists, and somehow find out who they really are underneath the mask they present to the public. But I didn't always succeed.
I think I'm a much better painter than an actor.
The main fear about growing old as an actor is not losing the looks. I never had any to speak of, and what I had I've still got, but losing the memory is another matter.
And the people I'm best friends with on the films are not generally the actors.
I always wanted to be an actor. I was one of those lucky kids - or cursed kids - who always knew what he wanted to do.
There's always the ongoing actor frustration of finding the great role to do next. I don't go to work a lot. I wait as long as I can until the money runs out or a great part comes along.
Initially, women only had to portray married wife roles on TV, but now there are show that are offering other roles to portray for women. Earlier, all drama used to revolve only around married women, which is not the case now. Even the male actors have a good opportunity for better roles now.
There are a lot of actors that are insanely talented, so I don't say who my favorite is anymore.
I really like being thrown into the works. Many actors, I have found, have this as a common trait. We had to, as children, adapt to various situations with either a military family or things like that.
'Hamlet' is obviously a role a lot of actors want to portray or be involved with in some way and that I'd like to be involved in.
I would love to work with the great movie actors of our time.
No actor has complete freedom.
Good directors give short and specific instructions to their actors.
The most important thing for me as an actor playing a character is to make you laugh. That's my No. 1 goal.
Waiting to be hired, as an actor, especially, is soul-destroying... There is always something you can do... Create something, a play reading... Anything. But don't rely on other people to come to you. Put yourself out there.
It's a surprisingly sacrificial job being an actor.
No one gave a crap that I was the kid from 'Free Willy'. You're not in some wispy fantasyland where everyone's telling you 'yes' all the time, which happens a lot to actors.
I'm not someone who comes onstage and says, 'I'm rewriting this now.' I don't think it's fair to the writers or the director, or the other actors.
Dane DeHaan, certainly, is kind of the best friend I've made through acting, in terms of another actor. He's fantastic.
When I started, I was an artist; I wanted to be an artist. I became an actor almost by accident. I acted for fifteen years and tried to produce. I looked for stories that were the story beneath the story that you thought you knew, like 'The Candidate'.
No, I'm not a very methodologically pure actor.
When I left university I was working for a documentary film company for six or seven years to the great relief of my father whose greatest waking fear was that I would become an actor.
I don't have fights with actors. In absolute honesty, I've never fought with any actor ever.
Canada has been a breeding ground for great comedic actors, sketch artists and stand-up comedians. We grew up with a different perspective on the world.
The Chinese say that having two homes is the way to madness. I'm not mad, but I definitely wish Hollywood would move to Trafalgar Square. But the life of an actor is a life of movement, isn't it?
I'm probably one of the worst actors as far as preparation goes, because I actually don't prepare. I find it easier to read the script and whatever hits me in my stomach, like deep down, I just go with it. And the director kind of molds me whether to go right or left with it.
When I was a kid, I thought I was going to be an actor.