A film has a beginning, middle, and an end. There is a certain amount of time that you have to embody these people. You know the entire story arch. But on TV, you have to let your guard down. You don't know how long the show is going to last. There is this excitement that comes with developing a character long-term.
I don't like doing movies, period. Movies are hard. I like TV.
A lot of writers dream of feature films, but television - by way of TNT, CBS, Lifetime, and Hallmark Hall of Fame - has always called my name. And after seeing 'True Detective,' can there be any doubt that the storytelling on TV is as genius as it gets?
Well, I don't know anything about television. I'd never done it before. Initially, it was quite daunting to take on so much challenge and so much time with it. I think it is a great outlet for an actress because you really have 13 hours to bring a character to life, which is so much more than with film, and you have the luxury of time to tell a story and to really color a character.
Film, schmilm. I'm telling you, television is so much harder.
With TV, you have so much to get done during the day that you don't really have a lot of time to feel your way through it. I know before I walk on the set exactly what I'm going to do. With film you can kind of find your way in it a little more, play with it some.
Television is kind of restrictive in its directing, but it would be nice to get some chops doing TV.
American television is very much created by the writers, just the volume of it. The writers are so key. You're just trying to do something that serves that script. And in general, film isn't all about the script, really.
A TV show is an open universe, whereas a film is more of a closed universe. No disrespect to movies, there's just a lot of artifice in closing out emotional storylines after 90 minutes.
The only distinction I'd make is between film and telly, I guess. "Film," "movies," and "cinema" are all synonyms as far as I'm concerned; but telly is different. It's just a plodding we've-done-this-scene, we've-done-that-scene and it never becomes this new other thing.
Of course I want to do films. But to me, television is equally important. It is where I got recognition.
I prefer film to TV because of the amount of time film affords you that TV doesn't (though theater is probably my favorite and the scariest place of all).
In film, you get to take your time and make it right. In TV, it's all about the schedule. The train is moving and you sometimes just don't have time to make things right, which is painful 'cause you know it could be done better and you just have no choice.
I actually prefer film to TV, but I don't know why. I think there's just a different energy.
When I was making films, we had a lot of time for the fighting scenes. But in TV, we don't have much time to think about how to do the fighting, because there are only seven days for an episode. You have to hurry. This is a challenge.
The great thing about being an actor in a film is that you're able to start knowing exactly where you're going to finish and really paint something in between. You can work to know the arc you need to build. Whereas in television, it is open-ended, and you're constantly guessing. There are pros and cons to both.
In the late '70s, maybe just before I started, there was still an attitude that if you did film you didn't do TV and vice versa, but that's gone now.
There's not much of a difference shooting something for TV and shooting something for film; the difference is film is in a cinema and TV is in your home.
With a film, you just don't have time to build sympathy for the character. But I think we're moving away from that in TV. With TV, you have a little more leeway to allow them to rise and fall and rise again and be much more complicated beings.
I'm going to insult a whole industry here, but it seems like TV is for people who can't do film. I'm not talking about actresses; I'm talking about lighting people. Lighting on TV is just so... it's sinful, it really is.
I don't know why people feel that I am only interested in films, but I very much want to do fiction. My only prerequisite is a good role, something which satisfies the actor in me. If I get a good banner and a good channel, I would definitely do a daily soap.
If you ask me, you see, I prefer doing film. The reason I'm doing a sitcom is because it's much more approachable.
As a film director and as film actors, you get used to a certain rhythm that's slow. But with TV, it's hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. It's a different pace. So, it's about adjusting to the pace. It's not meant for everybody.
TV show's really quick. You're in, you're out. A film usually takes a lot longer. However, a voiceover is very much like TV in the sense that it's really quick. For example, I did the movie Planes in one day.
Filming a movie is different from a TV show because film is a lot quicker, you get to see the character progress and grow all in one script, and in television, you wait for a weekly update on each character.
