When I was doing 'All in the Family,' half the time, I was looking at where the cameras were, where were the other actors in the scene, what the audience was doing.
As an actor, my main focus is finding good writing and attacking a good role.
There's a tendency, when you're directing yourself, not to give the performance as much care, because you feel like there's too much focus on yourself, or that all these people are just standing around setting everything up, waiting for you.
I rarely do any back story. I often get a thick bible of back story, but I can't use it. The back story is a tool of the writer. But I can only act what's in the scene.
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 people hate Michael Langdon, that's a good thing. I'm not going to debate that. I don't worry about making him likeable... My real focus in playing Langdon is making his intentions clear and how he operates and what his mission is and how he shapes the perception of who he is around people.
If you're shooting a really serious, dramatic scene, personally I wouldn't want to look at the camera.
In a film where I am acting, do you seriously think I would have the time to keep track of the number of times I kiss my co-star?
I have been in five Harry Potter films and never read a 'Harry Potter' book. If you are an actor, all you have is the script you are given. If you read the book, you might get disappointed about what's been left out.
Onstage, even though you're here together with the other actor, face-to-face, playing out the scene, you also have that other ear pointed out toward the audience and how they're listening. That informs a lot.
You can see all sorts of things in film acting if you know where to look and what to look for. One thing I often notice is that the actor is looking for his mark, the place where he has to stand to be in the right place in the shot.
Just say the lines and don't trip over the furniture.
I think, as a writer, you see the big picture, and as an actor, you're thinking of all the minutiae, all the very small details.
Being an actor, your focus is just on your craft and how to make it better, but production is a much bigger task - putting everything together.
I don't do many films at the same time, as I don't like to switch between characters. At a given point, I would like to get into the skin of whatever character I am playing.
As an actor, all I can keep my focus on is that I am a part of good projects.
In film, other actors' performances really are not your concern. If the other actor isn't giving you what you want, act as though he were.
When you do bigger jobs there's more attention and when you film in New York you get loads of paparazzi everywhere. It affects your work because you're trying to think about the person you're acting with and you've got 20 other lenses taking pictures of you at the same time, and it throws you.
Some actors, and especially the younger actors, they come into the job with a lot of attention on how they behave and everything when they're not working. Sometimes that can be unfortunate because the work call is pretty intense and the preparation for it. If your focus is there, then the actual doing of the job will be fun and enjoyable. But if you're so involved in trying to be interesting and a character and everything when you're not working, it can get in the way and people get goofed up.
I try to stay out of the spotlight as much as humanly possible, because I think that when actors, whether or not they've chosen it or it has been thrust upon them, are living very public lives, it affects your ability to get lost in their performances.
As a writer, you know what the purpose of the scene is. It really has nothing to do with the actor so you have to really get out of that space because for actors it's a micro-focus and then you figure out your arc through what the writers have given you to say. But that arc is just one little piece of the huge arc of the whole film. It took a while to get out of that.
With everything you do as an actor, you obviously know the full story. But the person watching it doesn't, necessarily. So, you just have to discipline yourself to wipe the slate clean as you go along.
Whatever headspace you need to live in for your character is sort of where you stay in between scenes.
As an actor, it's crucial you keep your ears open, especially when you're playing opposite comedic legends in almost every scene.
As I told you, from the time I was fifteen, I thought the theater was too much involved with actors trying to make the audience love them, being over emotional.
