When I started off as an actress, I did at a play at the Taper Too Theatre here in Los Angeles, called 'In The Abyss Of Coney Island.' That was more of a dramatic play. It was a small theater house. This was the first time I was literally on the road, doing a play, for four months.
You learn so many different skills on the show «Merlin». You're constantly asked to do green-screen, horse riding, comedy scenes, dramatic scenes, everything. The ability and the skill to adapt under a tight schedule is one that I'll definitely take away.
I feel really comfortable with going for the reality of the drama, but I'm not much for the comedy of it. You have to make people laugh, or you have to be true to the character in such a way that makes people laugh. It's a whole different thing.
I try to play serious scenes a little funny and the comedy a little serious.
I've always been attracted to more intense and darker roles, but I think there is complexity and darkness in comedies as well.
I thought I would be a dramatic actor - everyone starts that way.
One reason I didn't trust my writing for so long was that I always considered myself a serious dramatic actor. But people would always laugh when I shared my writing with them. It took my husband to help me see that I really am part humorist.
I think when someone who's known for doing drama does a comedy but just tries to be funny, that's a mistake.
I always laugh a lot when I see the dramas that I end up doing. I see myself behaving very seriously and I'm like, 'What is this?'
I know at some point I would like to take on more dramatic roles.
I would love to do something dramatic. I don't know if anybody will ever give me the chance, but I would love to try it. I'm trained in acting and spent many years working on it, so it's just a matter of opportunity.
Someone I met years ago explained to me the difference between a personality and an actor, a personality being Eddie Murphy or Roseanne Barr, and an actor being Morgan Freeman and Alfre Woodard or Marlon Brando.
I'm very serious about becoming a dramatic actor. I don't want to play cameo parts walking on as Carl Lewis the athlete. I want to go on stage or screen and be taken seriously.
Sometimes you can take those dramatic roles and maybe interject a little humor into them, and I think the reverse also works.
I remember seeing Janet McTeer in A Doll's House. My grandmother took me and we had seats in the very back row, but her performance was so powerful - it was very accessible. I felt like I was much closer than I was.
I don't think I could compare myself to Macaulay Culkin, because we're pretty much two different kinds of actors. He's done a lot of comedy. He does mostly just comedy like 'Uncle Buck' and 'Home Alone' and 'Home Alone 2.' And I've done a lot of different stuff, like sad movies, like the movie about the kid with AIDS.
I'm not playing a comedy. I want to be playing the truth of the moment, and then have the comedy come out.
I've mainly been in dramas, so this is one of my first comedy kind of performances in Cecil B. Demented.
I worked with Jackie Chan for a long time, and seeing how much pain he's in, I realized that that might not be a sustainable career for me. So I started to develop my career as a dramatic actor rather than as an action actor.
I just like comedy in general. My film work, which has been at times more dramatic, has been satisfying. But I never feel quite as good and as light and blissful as when I'm doing comedy.
I've always just admired women who were able to navigate through dramatic and comedic waters and sort of do it all.
I would love to do a dramatic comedy. All of that, it all interests me. At some point I want to do my 'Monster,' like Charlize Theron, so I'm buckling up for that.
I think actors go along a continuum from Simon Callow down to kind of Ross Kemp, and I like to think of myself as the Ross Kemp of comedy. He's very good in 'East Enders' because he plays a version of himself. I think I can play a version of myself - that's about all I can do.
To me, most theatre looks ridiculous. I find it very difficult to do. Personally, if I ever try to do serious stuff, I always end up looking like an asshole, so I might as well try and do comedy, because I'm good at that.
I don't think more concentration is required for Robert De Niro to do what he does as for Jim Carrey to do what he does.
