I thought acting was all about natural instinct but I've realised, through working with so many talented actors on 'Wild Swans' and 'Run,' that I can see the training. That's why I am back at drama school.
I think I realized it was an art form at the beginning, but it took me a really long time before I was able to view what I was performing myself as an art form.
Film and television is just a different technique in terms of how to approach the camera but basically the job is the same; but what you learn as a craft in theater, you can then learn to translate that into any mediums.
If you want to be an actor, you must have total, ruthless commitment to your art. Don't be ambitious for fame or TV or movies. Art is a jealous mistress and will brook no competitors. Study all the time. Never stop reading. Never stop learning speeches. It will fill you up - define and refine you.
Actors don't make a project; a project makes the actors.
I don't choose parts. I choose filmmakers. I'm done trying to make a statement with a character. What happens is, I craft a performance from the beginning to the end of the character. Then I release it to the director, and he interprets what I gave him.
Acting and directing are two separate disciplines that rarely mix.
And my father, being a good Swiss puritan, always really insisted that if I was going to be an actor, I shouldn't just be an actor, I should know about the whole process.
Every actor is like, 'I could direct!'
The craft of putting together a performance on film or television is incredibly intricate; you're putting together a story that is completely out of order, that you have to make some sense of, that you have to keep some coherence to the story, to the character.
The thing with being able to do accents is that it's still completely separate from being an actor.
My life, at least, is divided between writing and performing and mixtures of the two.
I feel whatever an actor does on screen is something the actor 'does,' and what the director can do is to tell, talk or instruct. So, all the credit for an actor's performance goes to the actor alone.
When you do a lot of acting your entire life, you see the entire set from one point of view. To have a chance to step back and pull it all together is really exciting. You want to do it all; you want to have a hand in everything.
I started to see acting as a real science. That really helped me grow as an actor.
To be honest, I don't think I'm an actor. I'm a creator - or try to be.
What I've found is that stage is very much a foundation of acting. It's where it all began and you're working with that repetition.
In terms of directors, great actors make directors - Gary Oldman was great to work with, for me; Tim Roth, too. You work with Scorsese and Spielberg and they were wonderful directors, but for me, working with actor/directors is special.
I learned my business in the theater and in television, particularly working with the actors. You can learn much more in the theater than directing a movie, because then you have no time when you are shooting a movie to really work with the actors. You have to learn this craft somewhere else.
I took classes and performed and did improv and sketch and wrote sketches and did lights and sound for other people's shows just so I could be around the theater. That was about seven nights a week for seven years.
When a character has so many secrets and so much inner life, it's a joy to play those characters because you can use your craft.
It's strange, 'cause a play, you start at the beginning and you go all the way through to the end. So it's naturally very well rehearsed and you get a rhythm and a flow. In film, you can shoot the ending before the beginning. It's very odd. And it's like a craft you have to learn.
On stage, I have felt most fulfilled as a playwright, for everything I create gets to grow and evolve with collaboration from directors, actors, and so on.
The one thing I have always felt about musical theatre is that it is, to an extraordinary degree, about construction.
Two, I actually learned a lot of things that served me very well when it came to repeating performances on stage, because it is a craft and you do need a technique for it.
