I usually decide if I'm going to do a movie based on if I like the script or not. I thought 'Pulling Strings' had every single element that a classic romantic comedy needs to be a success. It's very well written. The cast was amazing. It was a decision I made based on the power of the script.
Finding one good script is a huge challenge. So I do a film whose script comes and grabs me. Once I finish that, I look forward to the next movie.
Before we ever had a script or anything, I was attracted to the idea of playing a character that housed within himself two opposing traits.
The reason we shot it was that the script was geared to Las Vegas and it was something commercial that we wanted to have in the can in case Butterfly was a success and we needed a follow-up.
It's very rare you get a great script just handed to you, or sent to you, by someone you don't know.
'Sleepless' was a script that had been written by three or four other writers before me, and it never really worked, but it had this amazing ending on the top of the Empire State Building that just worked, no matter what came before it.
My plan was to go to New York and do some theatre, and then I got the script for 'Psych.' I was like, 'Ahh - just as I thought I was out, you pulled me back in!' I had a great meeting with the show creator and we laid out the parameters to make the show work: what I would do, what he would let me do.
With a franchise movie, it's got to turn the wheels of the industry, and the studio has to have them. So you start with a release date. They say we're going to make a new 'Bourne' film, and it comes out summer of X. Then they start on a script, and invariably, the script is not ready in time.
Sometimes I read a really good script, and I just know that it's not a good fit.
I've always believed that the script is the boss.
Siva is one of the best writers in the industry, and 'Srimanthudu' is a great script.
Arranging an official dinner in an embassy is a little like writing a script for a play. The prolog is the guest list, often the most difficult part of the whole creative operation.
I was out to have a good time and have some fun. It's a fun script and fun people are in the movie.
If I get two lines in the script, I somehow turn it into 20. I've got a bit of a bad habit of doing that, of just embellishing my little moment.
In daytime, you're shooting an episode a day, which is on average about 90 pages of script a day. That is very hectic. On '90210,' you get to work through it a little more. You're not just flying through it just to get it done.
For me, my first hearing of the script matters. It has to excite me as an actor and as an audience.
I think one thing that makes me delay projects more than other people is, I see this silver lining in a turn-down. Maybe if I just wrote a script and then pounded my head against all the doors, I would be shooting more films.
What happens is you submit your script with an idea of what the budget might be, and the financier will offer you less than that. In order to do it for less, it means cutting out the art, usually.
When good things come in, my agent calls or sends me the script. But I allow them to sort through the offers so that I am not just sitting and reading everything because honestly, sometimes the scripts that appeal to me are projects that are not good projects, but I just really like the script or the characters.
For me, I need to fully immerse myself in a script to the point where I'm literally locking myself away for weeks at a time and I just write it. So I can write twelve to fifteen hours in a day, with breaks in between, obviously, but I need to just sort of live within the world of the script.
The problem is that you can't really read a script saying, 'Hmmm, I'll just see what this is.' You have to go right into it; you have to get engaged with it, and once you are engaged, you want to do it! It's really difficult to get uninvolved.
With young people, it's how brassy and flashy can you be. But you get a bit older, it's about how restrained can you be. You have to feel it all, think it all, but you don't have to play it - it's just gotta be there, and if the story's good and the script's good, people will see it.
There's no point daydreaming about what you want to play, because there might never be a script with that part in.
It always starts with a script. I like to have plenty of time to read something, and I always like to read a paper copy. I hate reading it on email. I sit down with a script, and want to see how it hits me. It's an instinctive process.
I'm probably one of the worst actors as far as preparation goes, because I actually don't prepare. I find it easier to read the script and whatever hits me in my stomach, like deep down, I just go with it. And the director kind of molds me whether to go right or left with it.
