When I was a younger actor, I would try to keep it serious all day. But I have found, later on, that the lighter I am about things when I'm going to do a big scene that's dramatic and takes a lot out of you, the better off I am when I come to it.
When I'm doing a part, I'm not coming with any baggage of who did what. I looked at 'Force 2' as a fresh film. It's a new story and a new director.
When I'm on set, I don't really think about what an audience is going to think about a scene. I'm just thinking about how I can make it best. And how I can enjoy myself most.
I'm a firm believer that if you're nervous before you go into a scene, it means the scene is going to be good, and it means you're invested in making something special.
My approach to the work is the same, whether I had the lead or a supporting role. I consider myself a character actor in the true sense of the word. Unless I'm doing my autobiography, I'm playing a character.
Acting is invigorating. But I don't analyse it too much. It's like a dog smelling where it's going to do its toilet in the morning.
Some people think that acting's about being somebody else and I don't. I think this is how I would be given the same circumstances. And I do it for my own enjoyment.
I never really thought I was a method actor or anything like that.
I like to spend time with senior actors before going on set to break the ice. On set, I just look at them as co-actors.
People ask what it's like playing Prince Charming, but it's not something you really think about when you go to work.
I guess I'm probably a Method actor; I don't know... I just think of it as staying in the zone.
I think always as an actor. I go in knowing how I'm going to play it. That's about it.
Sometimes when you're doing fantasy, that's the most important thing, is to be a blank space, because the last thing you want to do ever as an actor is judge yourself or the character or the movie that you're in. You want to just play the moment as best you can. Juilliard helped me do that.
Well, as an actor, at least from my standpoint, I can't not like who I'm playing.
I just shot my first dramatic movie in France, and for those dramatic scenes that I shot, I would not want to look at those. There's a certain mindset you have to put yourself into for those scenes, and looking at the monitor would just take you out of it.
If you're playing the character, you could say to yourself in 16 different ways, What if that didn't bother me? What if I knew exactly what he was talking about? What if I didn't get excited?
I don't really get nervous for auditions, because I just see them as mini acting classes. There's no need to have an attachment to the outcome because it's out of your hands after that.
You have to love the characters you play, even if no one else does.
'7th Heaven' was a big ensemble cast, so everyone would get a turn. Basically, I'd get a script that focused on my character and think, 'Oh, I'm working every day this week.' The mindset was I've got more to do, so I had to focus.
If in the sex scene you happen to be naked in front of a lot of other people you've just got to put that aside, in the same way that you have to put that aside in a fully-clothed intense dialogue scene because you're entering into that particular imaginative state of play.
In order to inhabit a villain, you mustn't care what the audience think of you. That's not why you are there. You mustn't care for a second whether the audience likes you or dislikes you. Your villain has to be way beyond that.
For me, as an actor, it's always about getting out of my own way. I can put so much pressure on myself to keep up and make my director happy instead of being in the moment.
As an actor, you always want to root for your characters.
One of the first things I was taught as an actor was, 'Don't judge the character.'
A part of my job, when I'm playing a character and approaching a role, is to rationalize and to not judge whatsoever.
