I'm not the kind of actor that would know what my character had for breakfast last Tuesday.
As a matter of principle, I always come to a film like a blank slate, I don't learn my lines in advance. With this approach, I feel clean.
I didn't study interviews. I studied acting.
The great American food writer M. F. K. Fisher once wrote an essay called 'The Anatomy of a Recipe.' To have a good anatomy, in her view, a recipe should have a sense of logical progression. She despaired of recipes with 'anatomical faults,' where the reader is told to make a cake batter and only then to grease the loaf pans.
I'm not a method actor, but I'm a big research kind of actor.
I don't really rehearse, because I don't really step into action until I'm forced to. The only way I prepare is just by memorizing it backward and forward so that when I get in the room, I can become the character and not think about the lines so much.
I don't prepare myself for any character unless it is really different.
For any role, I pretty much always go to the script, first and foremost.
I prepared for the part by drinking, but I was sober when I was performing.
I like to prepare each tour in a different way.
I don't think I do that much to prepare for roles in general.
As soon as I have the script in my hand, I'll be up in my apartment room pacing up and down learning it because it's just such a lovely thing to do.
I work a lot; I love to compose, ponder, and take notes when preparing for a role. I cut all the scenes, collate the images, form the character and shape its personality, then I make meticulous notes and transcribe each scene on my notebook.
I have an acting coach that I work with on everything that I do. The thing about my preparation process for getting ready for a role is I have sex with as many people as I can.
It works well for me to go ahead and prepare the sermon with a chapter in mind. What that does is to force me to be very thrifty in my language, tighten up my words and not ramble so much. It puts some fiber in the sermon.
