You're being cast for your acting ability. It's not based on the way your body functions. If you're playing a lead in a movie, it's for that character and they'll tailor it to you. In a dance company, you have to fit in a definite mold.
I took a psychology class, and I think the study of the mind can help me further my acting ability. It's also taught me about getting into an environment with new people and acting like you've known them forever.
An acting career usually has about a shelf life of ten years before people get sick of seeing you. It's a good thing to have a job to fall back on and I really do enjoy directing.
If you look at my acting career, I never played a role that was similar to anything my brother played. I was always cast as the bad guy or a gangster, because my brother didn't do those kind of roles.
I think anger does fuel a successful acting career. To play the great roles, you have to learn how to blaze.
When I was in high school, I would perform every year in those plays and there was something I really loved about it. But I was completely unaware that you could sort of get into an acting career.
I think the part of my acting career where I've been more successful, I've been incredibly cushioned. People are much too nice to you. You go into politics, and people are absolutely brutal. You've got proper enemies, and they're vicious. It's very invigorating.
I said, going into acting, 'I'm never moving to L.A.,' because it scared me. But there was no way you could build an acting career in Orange County.
Ideally, that's what you've got in an acting career is an equal number of dramas and comedies and an equal number of small films and big films.
It's fine to have talent, but talent is the last of it. In an acting career, as in an acting performance, you've got to have vitality. The secret of successful acting is identical with a woman's beauty secret: joy in living.
If you want to be a screenwriter, take an acting class to get a sense of what you're asking actors to do. Learning other skills will help you communicate with people and respect what they do.
I got so far away from what they told you in acting class: Do something different. Producers kept offering me the 'Sister Act' movie, but I said, 'My fans don't want to see me in a wimple.' I literally said, 'My fans don't want to see me in a wimple.'
Honestly, soaps are great training. You're doing 90-plus pages a day. It was my acting class, where I built my foundation for showing up and being professional.
I had taken an acting class at Berkeley - I was on the track team, and a friend of mine on the team said, 'You should take an acting class. It's just like recess.' So I viewed it as a simple credit.
I moved in with a roommate who told me, 'Stay with me until you can afford rent. Don't give up.' People who supported me were like, 'If you don't have money for food, I'll cook you dinner. You don't have money for acting class? Let's get together and read lines.'
When moms and dads put their kids in acting class, good luck. Because you're just filling them with stuff they don't need yet.
I wasn't very good in my serious acting class. Sometimes people took our class so seriously, so I used to, sort of, make fun of people after class. And so a friend of mine said, 'Why don't you do the comedy thing.' That's how it all worked out.
I never thought of myself doing period. When you're in your acting classes, and you think about the kind of roles you want to play, it's always 'modern relationship drama'-type things.
It's so funny, you go to acting school thinking you're going to learn how to be other people, but really it taught me how to be myself. Because it's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience.
You know, back in acting school they always teach you, 'Make bold choices and look for activities that are interesting.'
