Actor's Inspiration Quotes

I love to be on location. I love to be in other parts of the world. I love to be where I'm reminded about real, you know, emotions. I love to touch things and design things, and I think that, for the actor, it certainly - it certainly helps their performance.

I can remember when I was a baby and my mother was there watching the show. I went and bought 100 episodes and watched them. I respect it so much that the sitcom itself and Ed Norton; I'm not playing Ed Norton but my version of it, cause I'm a black man.

Some of these things I saw in foreign films - African films, Cuban films - long before I decided to really go on this course as an actor. I started to think about what values I saw in those films that I wanted to bring to my projects.

When I choose a role, I look for that spark that tells me it's going to work. Is the role fresh? What does it have for the actor in me? Those are the only things any actor should be concerned about, really.

I've always looked to that play, 'Virginia Woolf,' for a cue - as far as any cue I might need as an actor for inspiration or as a writer.

I've always loved music. I listen to music the way a lot of actors watch movies.

Jekyll is quite close to me, a little bit more shy. Whereas Hyde is a mish-mash of lots of things. I didn't realise I was borrowing it throughout the auditions - but Heath Ledger's Joker was an influence.

Halloween has always been fascinating to me from a very young age. I think any actor would be fascinated by Halloween because it's one of the only holidays that advocates dressing up in makeup and costumes and transforming oneself.

If you're a classical actor, every Shakespearean part you play, you then say, 'McKellen did it this way,' and, 'Jacobi did it this way.' There's a whole list of Oliviers and people, whether you play Hamlet or Richard II or Richard III, any of those roles. And I found that a bit when I did 'La Cage.' It didn't bother me one bit.

Actors don't need a lot of talk beyond the first few sentences. They may say they don't draw on their own life, but all actors do.

I started my career by becoming a stalker, watching women in the street, the way they greet each other. I thought if I could capture some of that expression, that depth of emotion, it will make me interesting to watch as an actor.

If you have the opportunity to meet someone as an actor, it's just great fodder for you. It's wonderful source stuff that we die for.