I honestly have no interest in celebrity whatsoever. If anything, I always cringe at it because it takes away from what I am, which is an actor who wants to be better and do better things.
I only really like to watch things like 'Time Team.' I'd rather be out walking the dog. It's all reality TV, which, as an actor, I detest.
Even if I'm not vocally my best, if I have a head cold, as an actor, I cannot give anything less than my very, very best. There's nowhere to hide!
So many people are called but few serve as actors, you know what I mean?
My cartoon life is in my office, and it's very separate and getting very in my own head. My television life is I'm begging one of the actors to say the line in the way I'd like them to.
There's no rule that you have to like Henry Rollins the musician or the actor.
I reckon I probably worked for Euripides a long time ago. I do think we have many Earth walks and it's possible that he's an old friend. Does that sound too stupid for words? Quite frankly I think I've been an actor in so many lifetimes.
We had this neighbor who was an actor, and he was going to an audition one day, driving by our house, and he asked if I wanted to tag along. He was reading for the part of the father, and they were reading for the part of the son the same day, and he told me to sneak in there and make it look like I knew what I was doing.
I'm getting to the point where they see me as a good actor, rather than just a good guy who can act.
Artists, actors, people like that, they live in a very strange bubble of their own. They're mollycoddled; they're highly privileged.
I was joking with my agent that I'm going to get typecast for a water-disaster actor.
I certainly hated actors and, more importantly, they hated me.
One of the first speaking roles I had was in a film called 'Svengali', with Peter O'Toole and Elizabeth Ashley. I was a waiter, and I had about three lines. And I was ready! I had been around people like that, and I knew they were just actors. All the work I had done, it was all there, and I felt like I knew all the mechanics.
I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.
I'm fairly competant as a director and actor, but I am Mr. Neurotic as a writer. I just don't have enough confidence in my abilities to take criticism well. I take it personally. Start with 'It's a masterpiece,' and then tell me what you think could be changed.
As actors, we went where we wanted to, and the camera followed us: it was like having another person in the room. There was no formal structure to the process. It was very liberating.
I figure there are a few actors like Marlon Brando, George C. Scott and Laurence Olivier who have been touched by the hand of God. I'm in the next bunch.
I was an original member of the Actors' Studio.
I never consciously said, 'I want to be an actor.' It sounds stupid, but it's kind of like being a painter or something. You don't say, 'From today on I'm going to be a painter.' It's not something conscious - you've just been painting pictures all your life.
A lot of parents tell their children that if they want to be an actor, that's fine, but they should do something else first, so they've got something to fall back on. It doesn't work like that, as far as I'm concerned.
I know I walk a fine line between being a respected actor and being what they call a sex symbol.
I am an actor through and through.
It helps if you don't date other actors, but actresses are beautiful. How can you say no?
I hate acting when I see it. I don't want to feel it, I don't want to see it, I want to be taken away with the story - I don't want the actor's ego in front of me. That's what I try to live when I do the work.
Studying cows, pigs and chickens can help an actor develop his character. There are a lot of things I learned from animals. One was that they couldn't hiss or boo me.
I think actors have a choice of drawing attention to themselves or living on the outskirts.
I came to Los Angeles to be an actor, which is, at best, a gamble.
I think English is a fantastic, rich and musical language, but of course your mother tongue is the most important for an actor.
It was never a plan to be an actor.
I just wanted to be in show business. I didn't care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy.
Most of the film directors expect their actors to want to work fast.
A dancer's life is as peripatetic and unstable as that of an actor's. You're freelancing yourself all the time, and a dancer's lifespan is even shorter than an actor's: once they turn 30 or 35, they have to stop.
I never really wanted to be an actor. And that was the beginning of it, I began to write things down and eventually became a writer on a television show.
Something great about 'The Last Ship' is that it employs a lot of actors, and a lot of actors are getting work because of it, and all these people are in here, and all these artists are working together.
There are so many actors that I meet that don't act enough. Definitely take class, definitely train - that's the most important thing you do. Build your craft. Become better.
I really enjoyed working with Mariah, Alfre Woodward's character, because she's a wonderful actor, and I felt we had a natural chemistry that was reflective of real family members.
