I think it's so important when you're playing a character that you can't judge the person you're playing at all. It's a judgment-free zone. You have to just go for it.
Our dream as actors is to tell interesting stories about interesting people.
Recently, my dad has been teaching me a lot - like how to read a script. It used to just be about hockey or baseball or sports of whatever. We don't have glitzy or glamour-y Hollywood-type talk, like, 'Isn't that person great?' It's more about the process of how it works.
I don't have technique because I never learnt any.
I've learnt how to develop routines. To play with each bit. To enjoy expanding on it. To get used to the stage being mine.
Beyond any role that I ever had, really early on as a stand-up, I would see actors decide to try it and they would bomb miserably. What I realized was that stand-up, acting and writing are all their own disciplines.
There are two jobs. There is being an actor, and there is being a celebrity. Some people are really good at both. Some people are really good celebrities and terrible actors, and some people are really good actors and terrible celebrities. Hopefully, I am a really good actor and an OK celebrity.
As far as acting, I just went in and just started training. It was the first thing I did right when I retired. I just went in and found class, and found people, found the right coaches that could sort of just train me along.
I think it's my job as a young actor to watch adult actors and take tips on the way they work.
I learned more doing 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' than I did during three years at drama school.
I have had people telling me that they liked my screen presence and my voice, so I guess that's my strength.
Some people go to acting classes to learn. I just kind of went for the dates.
Backstage life is terrific training for an actor, seeing shows from the wings.
For the first 25 years of my career, I did nothing but sing and dance.
And at NYU, I went to the Atlantic Theater Company, and they have two main points. One of them is to always be active in something instead of just feeling it. And the other is figuring out your character.
After being signed for 'Madras Cafe,' I joined Jogi Singh's acting classes, where I learned the basic nuances.
I am one of those guys who could do the most emotional scene and crack a joke instantly. I'm lucky. I'm just like an idiot savant. I have one enormously enjoyable, pleasurable - for me - talent, which is being able to act.
As an actor, the training I received was that I walk through the world as an observer of life and of people. My job is to actually be looking out all the time and watching people.
Actors don't generally go asking other actors for advice too much, but I'll take suggestions wherever I can.
You need a bit more to be a pop star than just a good voice.
I always wanted to be an actor, so I began to prepare myself for a career in acting. I did a course at Kishore Namit Kapoor's acting school. I was with Shiamak Davar's dance school and also did theatre with Nadira Babbar.
If a woman's aim is to become a singer, I would highly advise her to first develop her craft in songwriting. It's such a powerful tool to have when you're a singer.
I'm interested in all forms of performance, yet I think it's difficult to be as equally talented in all of them as they call for such different skills. At the moment, I still feel I'm learning and want as much experience and variety as possible.
You finally have to learn to pull all the different kinds of teaching and training and coaching together on you own, so that your voice and body and technique for a sound that is consistent and solid.
Malayalam cinema has given me the biggest break and has been like a school for me on how to perform.
