As for action movies, I did Tarzan, and I'm also about to shoot Meltdown, which John Carpenter wrote.
A lot of actors talk about doing their homework, but very few of them do it.
I think I have much more appreciation for directing and movies overall versus a performance or an actor. Their body of work is more interesting.
Every actor has to deal with what's on his plate, and I try to deal with doing the best work possible with the most challenging scripts. I don't base it on whether it's a feature film or a TV-movie or cable.
I think every actor, you can say, has at one point decided to slack, phone it in. But Sean Penn shows up every day and does his job, and the character's always different. Always. 'Carlito's Way,' 'I am Sam,' 'Sweet and Lowdown.'
I scored a movie called 'Endangered Species'. I worked on another movie called 'Staying Alive'. A German film called 'Fire and Ice'.
What I really plan to do is take the best scripts I get and consider them seriously. I can actually work as an actor and prepare a film as a director.
I've had more people come up to me about 'Saving Silverman' than anything else. That and 'That Thing You Do!' But 'Saving Silverman' is the one I get most often. And I love that.
Work for the actor lies essentially in two areas: the ability to consistently create reality and the ability to express that reality.
When I'm working on the scripts or working with the other actors or rehearsing with the director, and when the director is cutting the movie, and we've shot the scene, the director is not looking at the visual effects.
Directing has only increased my admiration and respect for what it is that actors do.
The notion that acting is simply about intuitively responding to situations the way you feel couldn't be farther away from how I ask actors to work.
I've never so appreciated what actors do and how strange it is.
It was like there's got to be some way to stay working and stay productive in Los Angeles. TV is that kind of thing for an actor. Unless you get stuck in one of these shows where you have to go to Vancouver.
Major film stars tend to do a film and then have a couple of months off. I'm not a major film star; I'm a jobbing actor.
Oh yes. I'm an actor, so I just learn my lines, and show up and do it. I gave it a little bit of thought.
The press concentrates on a divorce an actor's going through and they ignore the good performances he gives, or the causes that he works for.
The kids know me from 'Babe,' but usually it is 'L.A. Confidential' that people remember, which was the second film I did. I have worked with some really good people and the films that I've done for the most part have been good.
Certainly as an actor, half of your work is not going to end up on the screen anyway, because in the editorial process, they need to cut to the other actor in the scene. Very often, your best work ends up on the cutting room floor, because it just doesn't work with the overall narrative drive of the story.
For an actor, style comes last. You first have to implement the whole thing, but your style comes from the subconscious, which is the best part an actor brings to his work.
It was a movie [The Railway Man] that stayed with me a long time. It's still one of the things I'm most proud of. I got to know the man that I was playing and unfortunately he passed away just before the movie came out. It's one that meant a huge amount to me, and one that I'm particularly proud of.
I think when people talk about lighter drama, they tend to use that term, not derogatorily, but 'lighter' means sort of less to a degree, but if you're an actor, light drama is often mistaken for easier drama.
Daniel Day-Lewis - he's a man, obviously, but I really admire his work.
The first work of the director is to set a mood so that the actor's work can take place, so that the actor can create. And in order to do that, you have to communicate, communicate with the actors. And direction is about communication on all levels.
I come from a family with a really strong work ethic - not just my parents, but my aunts, uncles and cousins. It rubbed off on me. I have a cousin in The Bronx who says I'm like the longshoreman of actors. I am a worker.
