You might only get three takes to do a scene; sometimes it takes longer than that to find those moments.
I learned that the best way to work is to allow the scene to live on its own before making major adjustments, whether in rehearsal or on film.
Going out on a stage publicly and not knowing how people are going to react to you - once I experienced that, it made me feel much more comfortable about going into a scene.
I had to be sick for a scene in the first season, and we used some fruit smoothies with little banana chunks. I had to put it in my mouth and spit it out. It was absolutely delicious.
If you've been around as long as I have, watching the literary scene, then you know that who's in and who's out changes by the year. It's really a very fluid situation that requires that the person who is having the good luck now isn't having it a year or two from now.
Sometimes fake laughing is hard once you've done a scene 18 times. I don't want to brag, but I have a reputation for being very, very good at that. It's funny finding what's challenging about acting as you go.
I just did a part in 'Sin City 2.' I got to do a scene with Ray Liotta. Amazing man, extraordinary gentleman who was just so kind to me... I'm so excited about that; I think it's gonna be very cool.
I've been around where I knew other actors were going to steal the scene, and I don't compete with them.
I have kissed in almost all the films except in 'Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai.' I'm not sure if my kissing on screen has anything to do with the success of a film, but producers make sure to put a kissing scene or two. They feel my kissing scenes are my lucky streak.
I think there's a natural system in your own head about how much violence the scene warrants. It's not an intellectual process, it's an instinctive process.
There's no continuity in videos... you can jump around all over the place. In features, you can't throw in a close-up of a musician stomping on a guitar - you have to film a scene.
'Venus,' which is a Roger Michell film - my first scene was with Peter O'Toole, and I cried. That was basically my part. I came in, cried in a white wig, and then left.
On a film set, for me, there's so much more time to process what's going on than there is on a television set. There's more wiggle room to try things and fail and try again and get to the heart of what's going on in the scene, which is really fun for me. It's what I like to do.
You never know how things are going to turn out in a movie. You can imagine a scene one way, and it can turn out to be completely the polar opposite of what you expected. You just have to roll with the punches.
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 know it sounds silly, but in auditions for film or TV, the words aren't as important - you need to get into the character and have the gist of the scene. But in theater, if you don't do it word for word, then you throw off your scene partner.
The social scene in Daytona Beach was simple. The white cats surf, and the blacks play music.
In some ways any film that you do has an artificiality about it. Even when you're doing the most kitchen-sinky, gritty, realistic scene you've still got 50 people standing around watching you with cameras and lights and things.
Onstage, even though you're here together with the other actor, face-to-face, playing out the scene, you also have that other ear pointed out toward the audience and how they're listening. That informs a lot.
Sometimes you have to delete characters from a scene just to keep from overcrowding the image.
I do not set specific work hours as some writers do. I generally stay with a chapter until I am satisfied, do very little rewriting, and if a scene is going well, I've been known to keep night owl hours.
It's all about the mood I'm in and the scene I'm writing. 'Cause work controls my life, writing controls my life, performing controls my life. So I don't listen to any music that's not an influence on what I'm working on that day. Music is a big influence in my work and sometimes drives the energy of where I want to go.
As a standup performer, I'm onstage, and it's important how the audience is looking at me. I'm looking at whether they're leaning forward or not, those types of things. You read an energy. And it's the same thing in a scene with other actors.
When you have three days to work on a scene, you can give all that love to the movie.
Two of the first plays I saw after I arrived in Britain were 'King Lear' in Liverpool, and 'Antony and Cleopatra' at Stratford. One was produced with hardly a backdrop and the other with gigantic scene changes. I was impressed by what connected the two: the words and their life beyond the stage.
Walking at random through the streets, we came by chance upon the Cathedral of Notre Dame. I shall long remember my first impression of the scene within. The lofty gothic ceiling arched far above my head and through the stained windows the light came but dimly - it was all still, solemn and religious.
Sometimes, you don't know what's going to happen to your character until the night before you shoot the scene. So, sometimes, you get a great big surprise at the very last minute, which is scary sometimes. You don't have a whole lot of time to prepare.
I try to use all of my senses when describing a setting, and try to think of everything that would impact a character in any given scene.
In a way, as an actor, you do all the preparation and then you want to forget it and just play the scene. As a director, you can't forget it because somebody will remind you that you forgot something. But you can know your plan well enough that you still have a certain amount of freedom.
The only time producers fed me lines on 'Laguna Beach' were more fake phone calls or pickup scenes. We'd film for nine months out of the year, and then they would start cutting episodes together, and they would realize that they needed a specific scene.
I don't like to rehearse, and the film-makers that I have been drawn to are interested in provoking something between people rather than nailing a scene in advance.
A Deap Vally renaissance is going to begin next year and will be our focus for the start of 2013. They will blow the cobwebs off a music scene that has become just a little bit stale.
As an actor I want to do as many takes as I can. I wanna shoot the scene... or shoot the shot 'til they make me quit.
The way I paint is similar to rock in that you don't stand around and say, 'Gee, what are they talking about?' Rock is simple, blunt, colorful. Same with my paintings. You don't stand back and wonder what it is. That's Jim Morrison, that's a panda, that's a scene on the West Coast. It's not abstract.
I think I do have a way of predicting - not always accurately - what is a nerve-wracking day for actors, what may be a difficult scene or a difficult moment, how small - and it may be down to one line - a thing maybe that is upsetting or undermining a performance.
We've been allowed to operate unmolested on the fringes of the music scene, really. That's where we enjoy it most.
