By the time I got to the Fox studio for my first major film, I knew how to hit a mark. I knew how to memorize lines. I knew how to pay attention.
I'm not a classically trained actor. I'm not a product of Stavlovski method or anything like that.
I was someone who was out of control and not to be worked with. It was partly because method acting was a new thing in Hollywood then and Marlon Brando had gotten through and Montgomery Clift had gotten through and James Dean but beyond that there wasn't really anybody.
Backstage life is terrific training for an actor, seeing shows from the wings.
After being signed for 'Madras Cafe,' I joined Jogi Singh's acting classes, where I learned the basic nuances.
I always wanted to be an actor, so I began to prepare myself for a career in acting. I did a course at Kishore Namit Kapoor's acting school. I was with Shiamak Davar's dance school and also did theatre with Nadira Babbar.
As an actor, the training I received was that I walk through the world as an observer of life and of people. My job is to actually be looking out all the time and watching people.
I am observing that to become an actor, people say, they want to join gym. Why join a gym? Why don't you join an institute where they teach you how to act?
I knew how to act and had studied acting and enjoyed it, but I'd never pushed myself to really perform as an actor, and create a role, and have the whole character's backstory.
I thought acting was all about natural instinct but I've realised, through working with so many talented actors on 'Wild Swans' and 'Run,' that I can see the training. That's why I am back at drama school.
I have no idea what 'method actor' means.
Yeah, well I've always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre and that's really where my training is. As an actor, that's my training.
I've been training as an actor for six years. Nobody goes to acting school for six years. I mean, the college course is only four years! I absolutely trained.
The '80s were a time of technical wonder in filmmaking; unfortunately, some colleges didn't integrate their film and theater departments - so you had actors who were afraid of the camera, and directors who couldn't talk to the actors.
I was a guy who needed to go to class, because I had some raw talent that I thought was identifiable, when I finally made a decision to be an actor. And yet I wanted to learn how to really do the stuff. You know, 'How do I get to be a serious actor?'
The actor has to develop his body. The actor has to work on his voice. But the most important thing the actor has to work on is his mind.
The process of doing plays will make you an actor.
I was playing a defensive guard in 'My All American' who is a really fast runner, so a lot of my training was running. I wasn't too worried about bulking up because he was supposed to be on the small side.
On 'The Impossible,' I was taught how to act. Naomi Watts was there every day constantly teaching me. That was where I discovered I wanted to be an actor.
Most actors spend a lot of time training themselves to be an actor. And I kind of didn't do that.
The cool thing for me, as an actor, I like to be as true and honest as possible, and I'm into real fight training.
British actors are pretty good, by and large, at turning on at 'action' and off at 'cut.'
We have no companies now, not in the sense that I know, that nurture actors. It's very depressing that, given the money they get, the companies today don't number up in my estimation. They should be bringing on young talent, and they don't.
To be a theater actor, I think you have to do plays all the time.
For the actor, The Lee Strasberg Notes are an indispensable companion.
