If you do too much acting in a lead part in a feature film where you're 40 ft. high, it's rather unattractive. You can see the acting. And it's actually the right thing to do to bring as much of yourself, I believe, to the part as you possibly can - to minimize the amount of theatrical stuff that you need to do.
Through my work, I've learned that if I love it, whether it's music, acting or any type of entertainment, I can overcome any of the obstacles that come my way.
Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life. Quitting acting, that's the sign of maturity.
The most likely explanation is the most practical. 'Macbeth' is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of 'Macbeth'. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting.
There's this weird thing about acting where you have to wait for somebody to ask you to do it; like you have to wait for a director to say it's okay.
I started out as a writer and a director. I started acting because I wanted to know how to relate to the actors. When people ask me what I do, I don't really say that I'm an actor, because actors often wait for someone to give them roles.
I worked my butt off in high school and received a lot of scholarships for college and to throw all that away for acting was tough for my family, but it was just something I felt my heart pulling me towards and don't regret a single minute of it. I love to act!
'Little Fish' has reminded me why I fell in love with acting in the first place.
I had a brilliant drama teacher while I was at Roland Park: Ann Mainolfi. But the school was mostly rich in academics. It wasn't like I was prepping myself for a life in acting. There, you prepped yourself to have a stable future. The school's piece de resistance is college prep - it didn't teach you how to audition for a TV show.
I'm not the best actor I can be, so I'm just working on it. I'm not the quickest reader in the world but when I get an acting book I can read it in two days.
It's something that I learned even before I started acting: the movement, the dance of the body, is very important, and it comes before words.
I love acting because you don't have to do the same thing over and over again, every day, and that's what attracted me to wanting to do this for a living. So to be given an opportunity to create something completely different and live that out is the dream. It's incredibly rewarding.
When I work on a movie, I never aim for records, collections or the number one position. I always concentrate on my work and look for ways to improve my acting abilities. I also advise my co-stars not to concentrate on these pretty issues and just focus on acting.
It's really hard to not get put in a box when you're acting and get typecast.
I moved to New York in '92 and got my graduate degree in acting from NYU - they have a great acting program. I graduated in '95.
When people say, 'Who are you?' I'm a sculptor and a painter. That's how I define myself. The acting is fun, and I hope to leave behind a couple things in my life of dramatic integrity and art.
Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of acting: character acting and lead acting. And in my life, to begin with, in the 1980s, it was all character acting. And then when, by fluke, through 'Four Weddings', I got into doing lead parts, it's a completely different thing.
I have an idealistic approach to acting. I want to be great at it, but you can't be great if the scripts are not there and the director doesn't know what he's doing.
I do constantly get to change the way I look, which is sort of an old-school idea of acting.
It was really unusual to go from being in university for four years to all of a sudden acting every day. I'd never been able to do it exclusively like that. It was always sort of like my secret thing that I did privately.
If I had to choose between a great acting job and a good directing job, I'd choose the directing job.
Being at the mercy of the acting profession, in the early days of one's career, is really brutal and feels like you have no control over your life, at all.
My interest in acting came from seeing Broadway shows on summer trips to New York as a child. It was the original production of 'A Chorus Line' in an easy tie with the first 10 -15 minutes of Dustin Hoffman in 'Tootsie' that hooked me on the romantic idea that the impossible, difficult life of a struggling actor was for me.
I think what makes a good actor's director is the same thing that makes a good director. Acting is just one of the trades necessary to make a movie.
One of the exciting and enjoyable aspects of acting is being in the environment with another actor.
I think 'West Side Story' is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, musicals ever put onscreen - or stage, for that matter. I, frankly, like Zeffirelli's 'Romeo and Juliet' very much, too. I grew up with that... I loved it. I loved the score; I loved the acting.
Training is vital. You need to know the technical aspects of acting, just in case someone hands you a monologue and simply says, 'Cry here and laugh here.' You have to be able to make sense of it all.
It wasn't that I left acting; it's just that I put it aside while I set about becoming a comic.
I went to film school at Columbia and did that for a couple years and really thought I was going to be a filmmaker, and then I kind of drifted over to the acting side after that. I'd been an actor in high school, and when I got to college, it was all about film.
I really like scripted dramas. My favorite show of all time would have to be 'Lost': I loved how the writers and producers were able to weave the different storylines together; and the acting in that show was incredible.
Writing is much more satisfying on a certain level than acting ever was. Because you're not interpreting someone else's original idea, you can come up with your own.
Faked enthusiasm is worse than bad acting - it is bad acting with the intent to deceive.
T.V. acting is a great skill to have, and it's nice to have that stability.
I'm in the acting business. That's the ego business.
I'm not into that method acting thing. I just turn up, say my lines and go home.
'Baywatch' sucks so bad. I didn't watch it the first time around; I'm sure not going to buy a DVD. But really, you just kind of find out the categories of what's most foolish about these people. With Hasselhoff, it's obviously the huge man-tits with chest hair, probably a lot about his crappy acting, obviously the hamburger video - that's huge.
