It's hard to pick, it's like saying pick your favorite child, I can't. I like doing both comedies and dramas, so it's very difficult to say which one I prefer. I've been very blessed to have had the chance to explore such a variety of characters.
Related posts tagged 'Acting'
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Related posts tagged 'Acting'
The Injury was my favorite episode. It was such freewheeling comic mayhem but so grounded at the same time.
I think playing Oliver Sachs in Awakenings was a gift because I got to meet him, and got to explore the human brain from the inside out. Because Oliver writes about human behavior subjectively and that for me was the beginning of a fascination with human behavior.
You may find out about my experiences on There Will Be Blood via my hilarious standup special LABORING UNDER DELUSIONS or Matt Gourley's amazing podcast I WAS THERE TOO.
I've always been a fan of sci-fi. And so when the opportunity to work with the Wachowskis on a sci-fi film that is a fully original concept, that was really intriguing to both Channing and myself. And it's one of the first times you get to see the female be a heroine, versus a damsel in distress. She kicks ass, which is always a rarity in the industry. In sci-fi films, it's uncommon for the woman to be the badass. But the Lara Croft movies, Aliens... the fact you can count it is a problem versus all the action films where the heroes are always men.
someone asked "what movie was the most fun to act in" and deleted their comment, so here goes:
Well, I did a film with Jim Jarmusch called Broken Flowers, but I really enjoyed that movie. I enjoyed the script that he wrote. He asked me if I could do a movie, and I said "I gotta stay home, but if you make a movie that i could shoot within one hour of my house, I'll do it."
So he found those locations. And I did the movie.
And when it was done, I thought "this movie is so good, I thought I should stop." I didn't think I could do any better than Broken Flowers, it's a film that is completely realized, and beautiful, and I thought I had done all I could do to it as an actor. And then 6-7 mont...
I think I am sometimes a poster child for arrested development in terms of I'm fascinated with toys and games. And I'm spontaneous. But no food fights. I'm gluten free. No, not really.
Absolutely. Weirder still was that my brain, slowly bleeding from a minor hemorrhage caused by an AVM (different from an AMA) was causing me to go insane, so that added to the madness. You truly don't even question your sanity when you are losing it. It's such a bizarre thing....
That every moment in life is precious? That the gifts of your relationships with others, don't miss it. That was one of the hardest movies I think I ever did in my whole career. Every day was literally hell, because of the nature of the subject matter, dealing with death and being in hell literally. When I watched the final movie, I felt it was extraordinarily beautiful but I felt disappointed by the ending. There was a different ending that they shot that I felt was much more true to the story. It was about reincarnation, basically, that they were going to meet again. The movie ended with two babies being born simultaneously, one in Bombay and one in the United States, and they held them up...
Doing these other things [in art school] was a release, and I think it made me a better actor. Because when I was only acting, I was trying to do all of these things as an actor. I was on my own mission. I was acting for myself — to do a great performance for me, not for the movie. But that’s not my job as an actor. My job as an actor is to help the director achieve his or her vision. As soon as I got to direct my own films or escape the film world and into these other realms, when I came back to the film world, I could be pure about it. I don’t think my performance in Spring Breakers could’ve happened if I didn’t do all this other stuff.
I couldn’t have lent myself to that if I didn’t have...
NO I do not improvise on the set of Breaking Bad. I don't need to. I approach it as a classically trained actor. I watch James Lipton interview someone, then I read the script, then I memorize the script, then I watch more James Lipton, then I put my make-ups on, then I take them off, then I act my pants off. Then, in post, they put pants back on me. The expense of putting pants back on me in post is killing the show. Send me pants, save Breaking Bad!
It was incredible. I have a movie coming out called The King of Staten Island. Steve plays my superior in a fire house. He was such a nice guy. We were trying to be respectful but eventually asked him a ton of questions about Reservoir Dogs. He's just one of those guys that can raise half an eyebrow and steal the whole scene. I've seen everything he's ever done. He's had one of the greatest careers in Hollywood. Amount of work and level of quality.
The scripts is one of the greatest conceptual scripts I've ever seen. It's a script that was so unique, so original, and yet it got not acclaim. To me it was no question that it was the greatest script of the year. To this day people are talking about it, but they forget no one paid any attention to it at the time. The execution of the script, there were great people in it. It was a difficult movie to shoot because we shot in winter outdoors. If you ever get to go to Puxatawney, you should go, it is one of the few things that is BETTER than advertised. It's really something to see. But doing the movie, shooting the scenes over and over, it's like an acting challenge. It's like doing a play a...
And how was it making out with Natalie? I mean... when you have a kissing scene in a film it's not something you think about as a kissing thing. You have all these crew around. But she's a lovely kisser, very polite.
But here's a little-known fact: there's one person in the world that both Ashton and I have kissed, and that's Natalie Portman.
I loved making FLETCH. Probably was my second most favorite movie to make, just because I was allowed to make up so much of the dialogue. I can't even remember learning any dialogue! I was just given the right by Michael Ritchie, a terrific director who's passed away, I'm sad to say, but he let me just go. And that's why I had such a good time doing it, and you know, looking back on that, I don't think I've ever been funnier in some ways!
I tried not to ever think of it as replacing Steve Carell. No character or person is replaceable. Everyone is different and we all bring our own set of strengths, skills, and foibles to the table. That mindset was really liberating and allowed me to focus simply on Andy and how he, as a character, would adjust to the new job. And that was definitely a big challenge. But a really fun and exciting one.
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