I want to play a character that is cold. I think there are sides of me that are like that. I'm a fan of the actor Edward Norton, and if you see his early works, he plays a lot of those roles.
Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.
Self-awareness is a character trait that's horrible to have if you're a performer. I think that a lot of these performers that we see get up on stage and play music, there's a sense of them truly not caring how they're coming across. They are just themselves. I look up to a lot of people who are like that.
As always, with acting, you can't be too self-conscious. You shouldn't care about what people are thinking about you at the time because they're not caring about you, they're caring about the character.
Acting isn't always about the amount of talent you have, or your ability to cry on command. The point is, how well can you take direction? How well can you put aside your own ideas or ego and listen to the ideas of the director and the people above you, while not giving up the passion and drive of that character?
I'll see a photograph of a character and try to copy them on to my face. I think I'm really observant, and thinking how a person is put together, seeing them on the street and noticing subtle things about them that make them who they are.
I've always been a huge fan of Charles Lawton's performance in 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame,' so somewhere along the line, I've always wanted to play that character.
At the very core of my relationship to learning is the idea that we should be as organic as possible. We need to cultivate a deeply refined introspective sense, and build our relationship to learning around our nuance of character.
But he did say that the character would be on the sidelines in movies One and Two, and move into the middle with number Three, but I didn't realize he would move in with quite such a bang.
Hollywood didn't know if I was an actor or a nut or if I was this crazy character I was playing. I had developed an image of being a little bit unusual, different and wild.
Some people have heard of The Method, which originally goes back to Stanislavski... he gave you six major pointers whereby you became that character and tried to fool your mind psychologically. That's it in a nutshell. Daniel Day Lewis is an example of somebody like that who stays in character between takes.
I used to audition for 'NYPD Blue' quite a bit, so I had this stock New York detective character that I would bring in for all their auditions.
And at NYU, I went to the Atlantic Theater Company, and they have two main points. One of them is to always be active in something instead of just feeling it. And the other is figuring out your character.
I am very observant of people's character.
General Custer was a close observer and student of personal character.
I do think that the attitude of the show is about tolerance. Everybody is different, and the show embraces that. The character SpongeBob is an oddball. He's kind of weird, but he's kind of special.
Jackson went from the professor's chair to the officer's saddle. He carried with him the very elements of character which made him odious as a teacher; but I never saw him in an arbitrary mood.
Even if a story has nothing to do with my life, if I can recognise something of myself in the character and think, 'Oh yeah, that's what I'd do...' Yeah, that's what I look for.
As a biographer, I try to uncover the adventures and personalities behind each character I research. Once my character and I have reached an understanding, then I begin the detective work reading old books, old letters, old newspapers, and visiting the places where my subject lived. Often I turn up surprises, and of course, I pass them on.
I had to audition for the part of Jnior, and I wanted the role terribly because I knew it was a great character. This guy is a wonderful, funny, mean old guy.
