In 1994, nobody could have predicted 'Shawshank' would one day be an iconic movie - and believe me, that would never have happened if Danny Glover had been Red instead of Morgan Freeman.
I prepare for auditions differently depending on what it is - what the material is, what the project is, who I'm reading for.
It is not like casting me in your movie is going to help you get financing.
Every time you enter into a job it's a whole new universe. There's a new language with a new power structure. If you are in an all Black cast its a different dynamic, the same with an all male cast or a crew that is mainly women.
There's plenty of examples of films where they're greenlit to move forward, and they want to get X actor. And they don't get X actor, so they go with Y, and it doesn't turn out to be as good of a movie as it should have been.
I had this spooky psychological thing about 'The Piano' before it began, which was how everybody was going to go nuts on the set. Because a film tends to set up the way people are going to behave.
That was the hardest thing for me. When it was published that I was going to play Tommen, all the fans of the books were like, 'Oh, he's turning 16' - that was the hardest thing: to play younger and show that.
I never knew that when you're number one on the call sheet you have not only the responsibility of carrying the film but also the responsibility of keeping up the morale of the crew and cast.
I've always gotten a positive reaction to doing African-American characters.
If 'Black Balloon' had come out before 'The Mummy,' casting agents wouldn't have been able to see me for the first time in 'The Mummy.' But now that 'The Mummy' has come out before 'The Black Balloon,' that's a very good combination.
When I decided to crop what was left of my hair, I thought, 'It's all over. I'm never going to work again: it's basket weaving me for me from now on.' But what actually happens is your casting changes: you suddenly start to get a lot of villains and coppers and soldiers and even the odd sensitive vicar - you become institutionalised.
Knowing who the actors were as you were designing them helped, with Catherine's beauty and Renee's frailty, they directed me visually just by who they were.
