actor's experience Quotes

So for Bullitt, I just put my black hat back on.

I love Jon Hamm. I'm so lucky to get to work with him and work so closely with him. We have a lot of these scenes that are very intimate, and very tender. Those are the kind of things that an actor lives for. Real moments of connection with other actors.

I've been on the stage my entire life as an actor.

I loved playing Chandler. I grew up playing that part.

How often do you get a movie where the coolest character has your own real last name? I played Bob Morales as a cross between my own father - the passion, the fury - and the real Bob Morales. I loved that movie. People, kids always come up to me and tell me how much they still love 'La Bamba.'

As rewarding as a good film role can be, there is just nothing like getting up on a stage and taking an audience for a ride.

The people of Baltimore are great. I love Baltimore. What I looked forward to, every year, was getting a new apartment in a different part of town and hanging out. People started to see you in the character that you were, so everyone thought I was real police.

Before Footloose, the things I'd done weren't cute. In Diner I was an alcoholic.

Sometimes I've been more emotionally disturbed by the experience of shooting a comedy than a drama. After 'We're the Millers', I think playing this battered loser who's confidence was at zero for 90 percent of the movie, I did genuinely feel that way.

I did a lot of films in Europe, in Spain. I went to Australia and did 'Mad Dog Morgan'; I did 'Apocalypse Now' in the Philippines; I did Wim Wenders' film 'The American Friend' in Germany.

I'm an actor. I have to play weird characters, quirky characters, strange characters, sometimes characters I don't understand.

I've been in silly movies and romantic movies and historic movies.

I'm on the show, 'Supergirl,' and one of my coworkers is David Harewood. He's an amazing man.

My character in 'Batman v Superman' isn't supposed to be Japanese, but director Zack Snyder said he'd seen me in 'Wolverine' and had to get me in the film somehow. Hearing that was like music to my ears.

After I found that I had become an actor, slightly to my surprise, I did have some insecurity, and I did take some rather strange acting classes at a place called The Actor's Studio in London. I don't think they did me any good at all.

'Mindy' was fun. Other than 'Superstore,' it was the other time I played an elitist, obnoxious idiot.

I'd prefer not to act in the film I'm directing. I think, though, as an actor, you do learn how to turn things on and off quickly and kind of compartmentalize. You learn to accommodate the camera and the other actors, to notice where the boom is and where you mark is, and be able to repeat something a few times.

I went to a foreign country as a Japanese actor, not a Hollywood actor. This takes courage.

The last three movies I've done, I played a cowboy, then I played a soldier, and now I play Han Solo. So the little kid in me is having a real joyride.

When you're not the lead on a series, you work intermittently, even if you're in every episode.

I count 'Underworld 4' as my training period for 'Total Recall.' I do think it was hard because I didn't realize how tired I was. It is quite a lot to sustain that kind of physical work over nine months altogether and by the end of it, I definitely felt like I had aged quite a bit in that year.

One day when I was working on a movie, I stayed at the beach a little too long, and they said, “You are going to ruin a whole day of shooting because you’re so dark. Two days ago you weren’t like this!” So I started putting that in the character; I made him suntanned all the time.

I often talk with other actors about that time when you've just finished a job, because I think you do take on the characteristics of some of the characters you play. Sometimes it can be a great thing and sometimes it's a bit haunting because you're not quite sure how to leave it on set. My dad talks about it as being 'de-personalised.'

I live in New York, and Clara lives in Recife. The character is Brazilian, and as I read the script, I felt like Kleber [Mendonca] had been spying on me in order to create this role [in Aquarius]. Clara and I have different backgrounds. I come from an intuitive world, and she's an academic, but when we got together, we really became one. There are many times when I'm watching the film where Clara will say something, and I will find myself agreeing with her. It was the first time that I had this weird sensation that the character I played is so me, but yet it's so her.

Getting in and out of a character takes its own time for me.