It all starts with the script: it's not worth taking myself away from my family if I don't have something I'm really passionate about.
As a writer myself, my job has very often been to also write on the job. So you get the script and a vague idea of how the scene might work, and you then add funny words or change the script. I'm not the world's best writer or the world's best actor, but I can do that thing where I can fix - or ruin - fix-slash-ruin, add quirk, add value.
I don't work for the commercial success of the film. I work to satisfy my producers who give me the money. I work to satisfy the director who has written a script for me. Of course, I have to satisfy the actor in me, but I want to satisfy them first.
I just trust the director and never overanalyse the script, screenplay, etc. You are just taking a bet at the end of the day, so confidence, be it on the filmmaker or the script, is all that counts.
Ideally, really ideally, you want to get to a place where you can have creative control over the material you do - choices, at least, anyway. And you want your choice of script and role. But do you really want your life to revolve around trying to maintain your privacy?
If you have a script that's not great, if you have a great director, you can make a great movie, but if you have a great script with a director who's not good, never are you going to have a good movie.
Once I finished writing the script, I couldn't find my Pandi. It was actually little difficult to cast for the role. One fine day, when I was shooting for 'Vada Chennai', Raj Kiran's name just popped into my head.
The thing that I look for in a script - I'm not looking for anything next because you never know where life's going to take you, so you can't just expect, 'I want to do this next.' So I'm not expecting anything; I'm just hoping.
My mom had been a script supervisor in Hungary, but you can't just jump into that in Canada without knowing any English. She worked retail jobs and raised my sister and me while learning English.
I can also romance a guy if I like the character and the script. Obviously, only in the film!
I think the script is the key. Regardless of how great everybody else is working on a film, if you're working on a script that you don't think is great, you're not gonna be able to make a great film. Whereas if the script is great, then you can.
Even with revivals, I don't really pay attention to previous incarnations. I always just go with the script and with the director and am willing to treat it as brand new.
The big lesson of Reagan is: To think that he was some sort of simple figurehead and didn't do the thinking and simply read a script in front of him woefully underestimates him. Ronald Reagan was an extremely intelligent person with a real V8 engine under his hood.
I'm not the guy who does slo-mo, or I'm not the guy who does splashing rain or doves flying or anything; that's not me. Every film, I try and make it the way I see it in my head, and it really just depends on the script and the people I'm working with or whatever interests me at that particular time.
When I read a script, I have to see the funny, and if I can see it's funny, it helps me to be able to transmit that.
I like challenges. That's why if I read a script, and I feel, 'Oh, I can't do this,' I'll take that role, because if I feel like, 'Oh, I can do this,' I don't want to take that because I can't learn from that film.
When I heard the script of 'Loukyam,' I was laughing, as it was such a laugh riot. So all this made me sign the film.
I want to write a script, but before that, I am planning to compile a book of short stories.
I like roles of people who can overcome things because there's strength in that and an arc - and roles where they start in one place, and toward the end of the script they end up in a completely different place, so you've seen this growth and some humanity in the role.
Sometimes you're reading something, and you don't know it will be important in your life. You're reading this script, and you start to get involved. It's not an intellectual experience.
I don't think you can cry if the script is rubbish. I have to feel it; it's as simple as that. It's just like if you're watching something moving, and you feel yourself welling up. It's the same thing. You're just being carried along with the story. There's nothing magical about it. I think I'm in touch with my emotions, and I can't help it.
I became a script writer with absolutely no idea of how to write a script whatsoever. I still feel a bit of an outsider in that regard. If I can maintain that approach to screenwriting, it can continue to be enjoyable.
I remember my dad working with me on breaking down my script and writing out a back story for my character and all that stuff.
Lately, I've been in meetings regarding a new script idea I have. A studio executive asked me to change the female lead to a male, because... 'Women don't go to movies.' Really?
Before, I was writing a script to make a movie. At a certain point, I became A Writer in Film and Television. So I got TV deals to write stuff, film deals to write stuff. But it's dangerous. I got into the WGA, and I became kind of, you know, a slave! They just pay you to write a script, and it's hard to make the movies.
I've done a number of things based on real people or true stories or based on books, and I'm a great believer that you have to be true to the script.
When you have a script, and you're discussing what it can be, and who going to play what role, that's a kind of like a fantasy football game. You can imagine these different dream teams interpreting these characters that only exist in your head.
My writers on 'Liv And Maddie' have started a running joke to try and sneak as many 'literally's into the script as they can to throw me.
I heard about the project over a year before we began. My American agent said, 'Oh, you might want to read 'In Cold Blood' because they're talking about you for Capote, but the script's with Johnny Depp and Sean Penn at the moment.' So, these things take their time to dribble down the food chain.
As much as I thought the end of 'Friday Night Lights' was a really great ending, I was one of those people who wanted to make it into a movie. Even though it ultimately didn't work to do that movie, I did work with some of the other writers and by myself writing a script for that.
It just tends to be that the grass is always greener. If I'm doing a movie, I suddenly think, 'Oh God, I wish I could just get a play script I could get my teeth into.' If I'm doing eight shows a week in a West End musical, I think, 'God, how lovely it would be to be in a TV series right now.'
To ask a pratfall comedian, a dishes-in-the-face comic like me, to lay back and bring none of that stuff to the script because it doesn't call for it? That's tough.
When you're writing for a show, you're writing part of the script. You have to tell the story.
If it was a great script and a great character, I would love to do a romantic comedy.
I'm the only person who's ever opened the Oscars or done a spot on the Oscars without a script and having it on autocue.
I'm a character and relationship guy, and even with the 'Saw' films, it's special-effects people's jobs to create these scary things. It's not my job. My job is to bring some sense of humanity to the character, no matter how evil he may be. The script is going to take me there.
