An actor is an impersonator; he plays many different roles. If you played the same role all the time, God that'd be a boring career.
The reason that most British actors are better than most American actors in the end is that they don't make any money. At the very end of their lives, they get into a space movie and they make a lot of money, but until that happens, basically, they don't have bank accounts. They live from day to day.
When I was 18 I went to college for two years and didn't work for a year which was essential for me, because my identity had been so influenced by my being an actor and I think I just needed to discover what it was to be myself, divorced from all that responsibility.
A career like mine as an actor has a lot of ups and downs. Sometimes you wonder if you're not wasting your time trying to carve out a space for yourself in this crazy entertainment industry.
When you choose to be an actor, you are going against the odds.
I realize I have a lot of amazing opportunities, but I don't know how you can play a human being going through real human experiences without being able to walk down the street. If you can't live a real life, how do you play a real person? It always confuses me when actors work back-to-back-to-back with no break. If you live your life on a film set, how the hell can you relate to real people? You don't know what its like to not have people fussing over you all day, and that's not life - that's silly movies. I will always want to take breaks and I wouldn't be OK with losing that.
I'm an actor and this is a role I'm playing. But people can get wacky.
From the time I was five years old, theater was all I knew. I did community theater; I went to theater school. It's like going to the gym as an actor: every single night, you have to recreate the illusion of the first time, so you really have to listen and connect and stay in the moment for an hour and a half - with no breaks.
I am getting on in years, and I have a very extensive IMDB page, and I cannot keep track of my own credits.
I didn't have to do too much "research" or acting to play this guy. (laughs) It is actually very difficult to manage all the time. The Community schedule is crushing and it kills me because I don't get to be with my family as much as I'd like.
I've been fortunate in my career to have the opportunity to pick and choose the parts I play. I've also been lucky to always be involved with quality actors, quality directors, quality writers.
Literally, I think I've quit acting three or four times, only for a few days. Maybe for a few weeks.
Actors need steely determination. It's a tough profession with plenty of knocks along the way. You have to be very determined and never take 'no' for an answer.
I didn't want to be the archetypal sponging brother-in-law, so I didn't go into acting when I got to the States. I thought, 'No, I'll go to school and then I'll be an English teacher; that'll be fun.' But I was horrible as a teacher. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't inspire those kids to take an interest in Milton and Shakespeare and Donne.
When I'm not involved in an acting job I try to run 10 miles a day.
After I directed, when I went back to being an actor, I was like, 'God, this is the life!' Because you only have to concentrate on one thing.
I loved doing My Favorite Year, which was great fun, and The Ruling Class, which I made with all my chums.
Another challenge? Getting up at 6:30 in the morning to go act. It's not fun acting that early in the morning or acting at 4 A.M in the middle of the night or in the morning when you're really tired. That's a challenge. What a luxurious problem to have.
Being an actor, you have to be working even when you're not working. You never really get to relax because anytime you're relaxing in between jobs, you're just worried that you're not going to get another job.
I've been on the stage my entire life as an actor.
Doing films as an actor, you spend maybe 40 percent of the year doing your chosen profession. If you are on a successful TV show, you spend 80 percent of your year doing the thing you love.
With a project like 'The 5th Wave,' you do something you would never do in your normal life; I would never have had S.W.A.T. training or boot camp, and there's something really cool about learning stuff like that that's really fun about our job.
People seem to think that I'm not aware of how people perceive me. But I'm the one that has to talk about 'Police Academy' all day long 27 years later. I'm totally aware of it.
I'm exceedingly proud of being an actor, but I never recommend it to anyone.
I consider myself a fortunate working actor, but I really work at it all the time. If I have a couple of weeks off, I'm taking class. You never stop. I started when I was 10 years old in Cleveland, and I've never stopped working my butt off.
