Robert De Niro taught me how to listen, and how to be part of the conversation. It's not just about reading your lines and saying what's in the script; you have to understand your character, along with the other characters so that you can always respond.
TV has gotten perhaps better than your average film script, but at the same time, it's fun to give it all you've got for a few months and produce a story.
I'm an adventurer. There are so many things I'd like to do. I'd love to do an Angelina Jolie and dress in lycra and kick the crap out of somebody in a movie. It doesn't matter how rubbish the script is.
The way I analyze a script, I don't look at how many days I have off. I see how far they're going to push me. That's just the way I am.
I refuse to work evenings or weekends. If a script sees my character meeting for dinner, I put a line through the words and make them meet for lunch.
I will admit I am a little bit of a line fudger. I will change the line a bit to make it feel better in my mouth. That is something they'll allow you to do on 'Veep' unless it's a particular joke where they're like, 'No, it just sounds better like this.' But with a lot of network shows, the script is law; you cannot change it all.
I would love to write a script where the main character is a woman. I know I can direct a film where the main character is a woman. I cannot write that film.
I'm a filmmaker; I want to make films. I don't want to sit in a hotel room waiting to make films, and I can control my thing in Denmark; I can make the film I want to make... of course, I have to write a good script, all that, but if I do my job, it will happen.
In general, when moviemakers talk to scientists, they usually see them as a resource to solve particular technical problems or script problems for them. So, something like: what sort of weaponry would aliens be able to wield?
When I read 'Rocky V,' it was a terrific story, a great script. Rocky died at the end. He has this devastating fight with Tommy Gunn, ends up in an ambulance with his head in Adrian's lap, and by the time they get to the hospital, he's dead.
Ultimately, however, the script an actor enlivens is someone else's words.
I try to look at the whole thing and say 'yes' to the projects that I cannot stop thinking about. If I read a script and the subject stays with me - then that's when I want to go to work.
Whenever I pick a script, I make sure I'm choosing something I would want to watch. And 'Quantico' was something I'd definitely want to watch. As soon as I read the pilot - and I read 26 this season - I knew this was it.
I love TV, don't get me wrong. But with film, you're just banging out this one product and you're not waiting on another script. You have your script. It's great, in that way.
When I was working on 'Deadwood', it was understood that the script was a work in progress, and when we got to set, everyone would kind of work on it together.
I get nervous before openings or premieres or when someone's reading a new script, and I get nervous when my daughter isn't in my immediate field of vision.
Every night, I will write until I'm done. Until my eyes are burning and tearing, and I can't see the computer screen anymore, till I finish the script, till I get to the point where I'm happy stopping, till I get everything off my plate, because I hate going to bed with a full plate. It makes me very neurotic.
A good script makes our job a lot easier.
I wanted to do a film for a while, but I never found a script that I felt I was going to be the right person for; because if you've never made a film, you're not taught how to make a film, and you feel like you lack skills.
I really believe that when you're playing a character that everything is contained in the script. If I'm pulling from things from my own life, then I think I'm being disingenuous to the character and the story.
Whenever I read a script, I start recasting the role that I might play. I'm like, 'God, this should be played by Domhnall Gleeson, not me.'
I am excited to partner with American Swan and to be able to connect with the youth and inspire them to chase their dreams and script their destinies.
I like going into a scene knowing that the script isn't quite finished, that there's something that isn't really going to reveal itself until something spontaneously occurs.
You can have a great script, and it can be a great show, but for whatever reason, it just doesn't take the public's interest.
I have a very good memory for scripts. I can watch a show I like once, then remember about 90% of the script. But ask me who was in it, and I wouldn't have a clue.
Many times, when a director reads a script and wants somebody who says 'Far out', then they let me do what I want with it and that's usually more interesting for an actor.
You can have an amazing director and terrible script, and the film's not going to be great. But if you have the most incredible script and an okay director, you could still get a really good film.
A good project but a poor director will always make a mediocre film, but an average script and good director can make a good film, as he will put in everything to make the film look good.
When I think about people like Queen Latifah, who literally found a script for me to star in, that's what I want to be for somebody. When you look at someone like Queen Latifah, or you think about the Will Smiths, those people are multifaceted. They do so many different things, but most important, they give back.
I was really proud to be in that show. I will never forget. I got the script to 'Millie,' and I'm flipping through the script and saying, 'Boy, I have some lines... I have a big song.' I was 25 years old and had never been on Broadway before. I got to the end of the script, and I was really nervous and excited. I realized I had a lot to do.
I've never had a written script.
When I give notes on a script, I say, 'Guys, I may drift, but it's part of the process.' So I'm aware that I'm drifting, but I'm grabbing a lot of stuff.
You can't start a movie by having the attitude that the script is finished, because if you think the script is finished, your movie is finished before the first day of shooting.
Writing is getting killed by too many chefs. Back in the Bogart days, it started with great scripts. You had a writer, and he wrote a script, and that was your movie. I think that's been watered down a bit lately.
What I mostly do is take the script, analyse the hell out of it, see what's in there, see what kind of person I'm dealing with, and then forget I'm playing a father and just play a person who exemplifies all those things.
You do small movies because the script is good and because you believe in the director. You don't care about the money. And when they disappear, it's a pity.
