I must say acting was good training for the political life which lay ahead for us.
I started acting when I was 13 in New York. Worked there for a couple years, then auditioned for a show there that was going to be filming here. Ended up coming out, getting the job and just staying.
I do figure every angle of a guy I'm acting - but not consciously 'til afterward.
It will be thought that I am acting strangely in concerning myself at this day with what appears at first sight and simply a well-known method of fortune-telling.
In acting process, it's very difficult to explain. It's something very intimate, very private.
I think, probably, the place that I feel I most belong is a movie set. It doesn't matter where it is in the world or who I'm making the movie with; that's the closest thing that I've got to a sense of placement. So I guess acting was a way of finding a home, if that makes sense.
The image of Ireland is projected as a male image in the acting world, similar to the way that the word of Ireland is male dominated.
I love acting, and it was really important to me to give it a real shot.
My most useful acting tip came from my pal John Wayne. Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much.
I came from the stage so it was a different kind of acting, or a different arena of acting, and I just loved to do it as a kid. It's really gratifying to get to create these different characters and to get to create different voices and to get to wear different clothes.
Acting is still, of course, what I love to do most. The beauty of it is that by changing characters, it never gets boring.
I did fringe theatre for so many years, and then I got my first play at the RSC, which was an amazing feeling, but I was 30 and had started acting in my early twenties.
I definitely caught the acting bug, but that lasted for about two seconds when I found my way to L.A. and found that my talents were better suited behind the cameras.
I went to acting school, but only for nine months. If you're an actor, you know, don't really need to learn how to do it.
Acting is a job you can learn a lot in. You get to play lots of different characters with different professions and different backgrounds; they come from different places than you do, so it's really fun when you're immersing yourself in that world of that person to learn about how other people's lives are.
If you followed this economic crisis and you do not think that the world is getting flatter, you are not paying attention. We saw the entire global economy at one time acting totally in sync. The real truth is the world is even flatter than I thought. Our mortgage crisis is killing Deutsche Bank. You still don't think the world is flat?
Acting is a bit of a heart and soul exercise with me. It's kind of all I've got.
When you start so young working, you build a hunger for acting, working, and a busy life.
I love acting and don't find it to be very hard. I recognize when I've nailed it, and I can be very proud of myself.
It was jarring to be berated for 'acting white' when I was placed in a predominantly black middle school in Southern California. I was also chubby, into boys who weren't into me, and tried too hard to fit into this 'blackness' I was supposed to be.
I didn't want to be seen as just a guy on a list. I'm interested in good scripts, scripts that are about something, scripts that move your acting along.
I really love school, but I'd love to continue acting jobs if I can.
It's nice to have my mother as someone I can talk to about acting. My dad's a director, so when he comes to watch me on set, he think it's his set. He's always telling a production assistant, 'Can you get me five donuts?'
I think the thing about acting and making music is that it's easy to do both. I'll shoot a movie for three months, and then I won't have to work for however long I want to. So, I can do a movie for a couple of months and then come and do music for a couple. But whatever's hot at the moment is what I'll gravitate toward.
There is life after acting.
I only took a high school acting class because there was no other class I wanted to take. I loved it, but I was always against acting as a profession. I didn't like the monetary fluctuations I saw.
You can be in an acting class all you want, but you don't fully learn until you get off that stage and in front of a camera.
Influence is best measured not only by military hardware and GDP, but also by other people's perceptions that we, the United States, are using our power legitimately. That belief - that we are acting in the interests of the global commons and in accordance with the rule of law - is what the military would call a 'force multiplier.'
I discovered that I wanted to be an actor back when I did my first play in junior high. I've been doing theater in junior high and high school, and I just kept feeding the fire, kept wanting to pursue acting full-on.
I didn't really like modeling; it was fun but I always wanted acting.
I remember I was so crabby in my third trimester - I got gestational diabetes because I'd been acting like I was in a one-woman pie-eating contest.
Steven Spielberg seems to have wanted to be a director from 13. He put his dog in a certain position and made him eat at four o'clock. He liked to direct it. But, to me, directing is tedious. Especially if you're acting in it. And I'm inherently lazy.
I'm glad I took the leap away from acting into going behind the camera because it's much more satisfying - I love acting and I still do, but it's much more satisfying to be able to make the stuff.
I generally like grey roles. My interpretation of drama is different from the popular perception. Acting, for me, is not about overplaying, it is about concealing. I like flawed characters that people relate to. I would never do a romcom.
I use acting to get away from myself and to live in someone else's skin, and I do singing to get inside my own skin. I need them both for my emotional health.
In my long and difficult and mature life, I have come to learn that the less I know about acting and the more I know about everything else, the better I'll be at both acting and living.
