I did a couple of movies when I was little. You have to be possessed to be an actress, and I was not possessed... It was not my life's passion.
I think a lot of people become actors because they have a great reservoir and repertoire of many different emotions they felt over their lives. It's like having a toolbox, and you go down into the toolbox and choose one or two of those that you need for a particular scenario, or something that comes up in a line.
Sometimes you look at a movie and you can see that the actor or actress said, 'I'm taking this onboard because I'm making a ton of money, and not because it's going to be something special.'
Everyone's amazed by the question that how did I succeed as an actor in the industry, which has Kamal Haasan? It's because I grew as an actor watching Kamal's acting.
I wasn't a class clown, I never developed this comedic flair as a kid. Even when I decided to become an actor, it was just to be an actor, not necessarily a comedic actor. I wasn't that guy who struck out with women so he became really funny, and that's when the women started to like him.
I understand pain very well, so I look for that in a role. If the characters are well-written, don't tell nobody, but I'll do the damn thing for free. I'm serious. It's the writing. I love beautifully flawed characters.
I have been a fan of Yoo Ah In's for a long time. Every time I watched one of his films, I would think to myself, 'How does he act like that?' and greatly admired his acting abilities. I felt that I would be able to learn and improve a lot as an actor, just by observing.
My belief is that if I can achieve that level of entertainment by making the audience happy or sad or angry, then I have succeeded as an actor and have done my job. The profits and the fame as an actor will eventually surface, but first and foremost comes the work as an actor.
Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.
There's no trick of teaching acting. Either someone wants to do it and is gifted, or not.
Alan Rickman told me to do a play, so I did. Because when Alan Rickman tells you do something, you go and do it.
I got the acting bug really young, when I was around, like, 10. I pretty much just wanted to be Michael J. Fox. He was in 'Teen Wolf' - that was, like, the coolest role, and then he did 'Back to the Future,' and that was the coolest role.
I wasn't driven to acting by any inner compulsion. I was running away from the sporting goods business.
I've been in showbusiness all my life, but as an actress I have never been overly driven.
A lot of why we become actors is to fill a void that we have and a part of that void is to live out and tell stories that we've lived or that we hope would have been different in our own lives.
Shakespeare is one of the reasons I've stayed an actor. Sometimes I spend full days doing Shakespeare by myself, just for the joy of reading it, saying those words... I do Shakespeare when I am feeling a certain way.
What is more important than the name is that people know that I really like acting, I enjoy it and I want people to know that I am serious. The name thing: I will always be L.L. Cool J.
The main reason I did 'Captain America' was because I wanted to get out of my own head and stop taking my work so seriously.
There's a lot of reasons you can think of to say why you act, but I can only say that it just felt good. At the same time, it felt really painful. It's still troubling and stressful to me.
The reason I got into acting was not to explore myself. I was a reader, I didn't care about acting. I got into it in college, but I had no interest really in that, in getting up in front of anybody.
I definitely wanted to be an actor. I didn't want to be on TV, I didn't want to be famous, I didn't want to be anyone in particular; I just wanted to do it. I see young people now who look at magazines, or American Idol and their goal is to have that lifestyle - to have good handbags, or go out with cute guys from shows, or whatever. But I definitely wanted to be an actor.
Realistically speaking, I don't know how many more years I will want to be acting or will be invited to be.
I'm not after having the lead or being in a blockbuster Hollywood film. I'm after reading the material and loving it. That's all.
As an actress I find the most enjoyable part of acting is really just to please the director. I just want to please my director.
There are definitely roles within this industry that are industry-related, but to be a good actor, you really have to want to act first. At the same time, my goal was never to go to Hollywood to make movies. I think if you come here with that attitude, then you've missed a few steps.
