Matt Barr Quotes

When you look at the piece of paper, and there's just words on there, you interpret it as the actor to whatever you think is right. There may not be the hidden meaning behind the dialogue, because you don't really get to see what's going on.

It's always so much fun to create backstory. Even if there are more clues in the script, you still always have to invent a lot for yourself. I think that comes naturally.

Stage work, that's all I have in my background. Wasteland was my first TV experience. Dawson's was my first long-term, I mean the entire season of 22 episodes.

What I remember most about working on 'Sesame Street' is having fun in the green room with the other kids while waiting for my time to go on camera to work with the puppets.

'Roc' was sort of an experiment because none of the lead actors on our show had any real television experience, especially in half-hour TV.

I've loved every minute I've spent in television. And I've had much more failure, as traditionally measured, than success in television. I've done four shows, and only one of them was the 'West Wing.'

I would think, as an actor, it's just much more fun to be the bad guy.

I never think of myself as an actor who takes work home with them.

When you start out as an actor, you read a script thinking of it at its best. But that's not usually the case in general, and usually what you have to do is you have to read a script and think of it at its worst. You read it going, "OK, how bad could this be?" first and foremost. You cannot make a good film out of a bad script. You can make a bad film out of a good script, but you can't make a good film out of a bad script.

I think films are about having a good time, so I don't know that there's a message. The message of a film is always what a critic writes, and the fun of a film or the emotion of a film is what the audience feels.

I don't like to be challenged in the way that often happens, where somebody writes something and then you, as an actor, are expected to really make it up in your imagination. That's not really an ideal way of working.

Usually, I read the script very often. I think that everything is hiding in the script.

When I have failed as an actor I've always thought it was my fault. But when I direct something, I wouldn't want the actors to think it was their fault.

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.

TV is a very sensitive thing. If you're not happy with what you're doing, I don't think you should do it because you will do it for awhile.

I think one of the biggest things is the budget.For a studio, becomes a very big challenge to make sure that movie will work even better on every level. As an actor I don't think in those terms when I make a movie.

It certainly helps, I think, with some actors to understand the process of acting. You see what extraordinary pressure they're under, there's a huge circus dedicated to a particular moment and they're got to deliver and it can help that you, even if empathetically alone, understand what they're doing.

Every single time when you act in a film, and there's a different director, which of course as actors we're used to experiencing that's what we do, it's a different experience.

Actors don't like to read what they're supposed to do.

I'm a perfectionist, so doing a high quality, high caliber television show with great actors makes me feel like there's this whole world of television that I've never experienced.

I think that's all you can hope for as an actor when you read a script; that after the first thirty pages it has some meaning to it.

I tend not to read the size of the production into a script when I'm reading it. It's just something you respond to or not and I do think it's very dangerous to say it's time now to do this or it's time now to do that.

For me, I just like to be as fun as possible, but I do like to bring a lot to a character. Given the script or the show, I know my boundaries, limits, and how far I can go with it. As far as me choosing these characters that have a lot of personality, I don't necessarily think it's intentional. I just think that I try and come up with a backstory of who they are, depending on the script or how rounded these characters are, and just go from there.

Why do we think the people on stage are the only ones having fun?

As a game-show host, what I'm thinking and what I'm experiencing doesn't matter. My opinion doesn't matter. So there's a flattened reality to it. It's fun to do. But it's certainly not myself in totality - or even maybe a little bit.