MMA is a sport. We go out here and we do battle. Everybody has family, friends, they train really hard.
Every game's a championship game. When we focus that way, get prepared that way-that this is it, you know, this is the last one, the biggest one-you get ready, you get amped up, you get that laser focus and you're ready to play.
James Franco is a Method actor. I respect Method actors, but he never snapped out of character. Whenever we'd have to get in the ring for boxing scenes, and even during practice, the dude was full-on hitting me.
I love Michelle Williams. I think she's extraordinary. I was such a fan of 'Blue Valentine,' and I heard stories about how Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams worked on that. They lived together for a period of time as rehearsal. From nine in the morning to five at night, living in a space together. The work is really awe-inspiring.
I spent lunchtime in a grave during the filming of 'Bloody Mama.' When you're younger, you feel that's what you need to do to help you stay in character. When you get older, you become more confident and less intense about it - and you can achieve the same effect.
I'd love to do something where I have to completely transform. Or something that is very physical and would test me with discipline in that way. Something that I'd maybe have to train for.
I don't want to lose ever. I don't want to lose at anything. I want to make weight faster than the guy that I'm fighting if we both go into the sauna at the same time. When we're doing interviews I want to have quicker wit so that I can make him feel stupid. I want to drink my water faster. And then when we get in the cage I want to beat him up. I don't think people really truly understand the extent that I go to try not to use.
I'm able to look the person acting across from me and respond to that. There are times when it becomes so lonely and painful, but I think I'm able to overcome them because I realize that the more fiercely you prepare for a role, the more the audience can feel it.
When I get really passionate about something, the audition process is really strenuous and hard on me because I feel so much for the project, and I become so attached to it. It's hard. It's stressful because you want it so badly, and you're crafting this character that you're falling in love with.
Every audition I get, I agonise over and I put everything I can into it.
Daniel Day-Lewis is extraordinary; I think he may be one of the best actors ever that we've worked with.
All I will say is that I'm playing a lot of different roles that, to be honest, are more interesting and demanding than any I've played before.
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.
If every play was three weeks, I'd do lots of plays. It's just the idea of six months, I think, that might drive me a bit nuts.
With my style, training is very rigorous. You're toe-to-toe, getting beat on six days a week for five or six weeks leading to a fight. There's no fun, no glamour.
Whatever it takes to get you where you need to be, there's nothing wrong with the method acting or having to growl and bang your head in a corner and get into the moment and work yourself into a lather - if that's what it takes, so be it.
Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the greatest actors of our age; he's like Olivier. He's one of those people who can take you into a place where no one else can take you.
Seeing The English Patient is wonderfully draining, but imagine acting in it for six months.
Making a record is a lot like surgery without an anesthetic. You first have to cut yourself up the middle. Then you have to rip out every single organ, every single part and lay them on a table. You then need to examine the parts, and the reality of the situation hits you. Then you pop it all back in, sew yourself shut and perform.
I was so nervous that this was 'True Detective' and that I needed to do a good job that I would just dig into every scene.
You know those hard days you go home where you've been worked to the bone and you just want to do nothing? In fight prep, every day is that day.
