I didn't know anything about acting, I didn't know anything about theater, but I was just an exceptional student at high school. I wanted to play ball; I'm going after a basketball scholarship and be a doctor. I got injured and my marks began to drop.
What's great about acting is you can let all your wackiness hang out while you work.
I want to establish a wide range and play all kinds of parts. It's that sort of acting career I really respect. I like to turn a sharp left from whatever I've done before because that keeps me awake. That's why I want to be an actor - I don't want to play endless variations on one character.
After my 12th standard, I started preparing for the film industry. I've had no formal acting training.
John was the smartest and most amazing comedian I've ever worked with. I think more than teaching me about acting or comedy, he taught me about life and the love of people and respect of people.
'Everwood' I think provides a unique feeling, an emotional experience. And other shows on TV don't have the acting talent to do that. Each one of our actors can do a serious scene and a humorous scene, and can do it all within the same sequence. They can go from a heartbreaking moment to a humorous moment.
I'll say initially acting was my first love, and that's what I pursued. But then, so far as even my first day on a film set, and just watching how things were set up, I just said, 'I think I want to be in charge.' I am very much type-A. I am a bit of a control freak.
Everyone has a different path. I knew no one in the acting industry growing up. I never did a play until college. I was not outspoken when I was younger and I hated being the center of attention. But I had a dream of being an actor. I went to NYU and studied theatre. I learned a craft. And began my career straight out of college.
When I'm acting, I'm two beings. There's the one monitoring the distance between myself and the camera, making sure I hit my marks, and there is the one driven by this inner fire, this delicious fear.
The joy of acting for me is to be able to experience emotions in a safe environment. You can't scream and cry in the street because everybody will look. If you do it on a movie set, you get applauded.
I used to be a dancer, and for me it was a really good combination of dance and acting.
I don't think I really have a talent for movie acting.
My mother's family raised grains and crops. My father's grew sugarcane and mangos. So I knew more about the basics of farming than of acting.
I'll never stop acting, but music is another passion of mine. I just love creating projects in the entertainment field and performing onstage or in front of a camera.
Obviously there are times with acting when exactly what is required is just going through the motions, and when doing nothing is the best thing. But at other times, you have to make that leap beyond the immediate environment of people putting up lights on the set.
I didn't get into this for fame, I genuinely didn't. I love acting, and I know that's a cliche, but I didn't, really, I was very naive when it came to the whole being recognized thing.
Even as far back as when I started acting at 14, I know I've never considered failure.
To be honest I never thought the acting thing would get off the ground.
A career in film didn't seem like something I could attain. Whereas I grew up next to New York City, and I spent my life going into New York City seeing plays, and I was a theater actor in school. Acting on the stage felt really natural to me, and I liked it, and I wasn't terrible at it.
My mom used to model when she was younger, before she went to law school, and I think she thought it was pretty cool. I think my parents saw that acting ultimately made me happy, even though it was a rough ride for a little bit.
I think it reaffirmed something that I believed in and conceptually always had faith in which was that you're most effective when you work as a team. I love that about filmmaking. I stopped playing team sports at 15-16 because of acting. I think I find a kind of new team sport in filmmaking in a way.
But no, I love acting, it's a wonderful job.
I think I was drawn to acting just as a way of getting noticed.
The worst acting is about imitation.
When I did 'Clockers,' I didn't even think about having a career in acting, I just thought, 'Wow, this is cool. I get to do a little movie.'
My dad is a singer, so it was always either music or acting with me. All the way up through college I was doing both, and even after college I was in a reggae band. Then the acting really started taking off, so the music had to become a hobby.
I've been planted here to be a vessel for acting... That's why I'm really taking any part, regardless of how complicated it's going to be.
Drama school, you know, I own an acting school, Actor Prepares.
Acting... was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick?
Great acting may be a turn-on, but it won't make me fantasize about the person for a week.
After I found that I had become an actor, slightly to my surprise, I did have some insecurity, and I did take some rather strange acting classes at a place called The Actor's Studio in London. I don't think they did me any good at all.
Acting is trying to be absolutely truthful; to get audiences to believe that you are a dean, when, actually, not only are you not the dean, but if you walked into the building they'd probably throw you out. That's very hard.
Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information. It is a creative human activity, its geniuses acting more as artists than as information processors.
I love acting, and I have no desire to direct.
Prior to Elephant I'd taken about six years of acting classes in Portland, but there's not a huge market there. The only thing we have is commercial stuff, and that didn't really appeal to me. So this is really a dream come true.
I'd like to settle down eventually, but acting is emotionally draining.
