Role Authenticity Quotes

Eight times a week, I got to be a gay man, a remarkable gay man, and every night, that felt as full, as true, as passionate, and as authentic as I ever felt in my life.

There's something very cool as an actor when you have an opportunity to play somebody who's real, whether they're still alive or not, but who has lived a life.

I have played characters where I haven't been absorbed - you know, what I call a typical film leading man role where you just have to look gorgeous and be attractive and charming. It bores me. I like a bit of dirt, a bit of sand in the oyster.

Scorsese and De Niro taught me to bring out the natural side of myself. And they taught me to think of myself as the average guy. Sometimes the average guy belongs in a role more than your matinee idol-type of person. We have to have people we can relate to.

What I want to do is play roles as a black man, instead of playing black man's roles. You know?

With any character, the main objective is to bring authenticity to the role.

I never really read a character before that I connected with more than Peeta. So, for me, if I couldn't get that job I was like, 'Well, if I can't play practically myself in a movie, what can I play?'

I’m never going to be considered brave for playing a straight person, and nor should I be.

I love British television. I love the irony, I love the authenticity and I love the roles I get put up for.

The danger of course is always is caricature. The biggest challenge was to sound like Nelson Mandela. Everything else is easy to do, walk like him. He has a few ticks and things I noticed that I picked up. I didn't have any agenda, as it were, in playing the role other than to bring it as close to reality as I possibly could.

I'm kind of hard to double, but I did have one guy for a while as my double. I kind of like to do my own stunts, though, because it's just the overall experience. Sometimes you have to step aside when the stuff gets really dangerous, but I feel like sometimes you have to do your own stunts to make the role seem real.

I always felt so much more comfortable in the Western. The minute I got a horse and a hat and a pair of boots on, I felt easier. I didn't feel like I was an actor anymore. I felt like I was the guy out there doing it.

A lot of filmmakers and actors say, "It's so important to bring an authenticity to the role," blah, blah, blah. But then it's interesting because you're also trying to be somebody else, and viewers are going to associate you with that, so I don't think it really has an answer.

You have a great road map when you play somebody that exists. That's the amazing thing. But then you have great limitations from that road map. It's hard to deviate from it creatively as an actor. It's like, "Oh wait, he'd never do that."

Playing someone supernatural is more realistic than I thought it would be.

It helps an actor an awful lot when he looks like the part. There's nothing more disconcerting, that makes you more anxious or more insecure, than when you don't look like who you're supposed to be.

When you play a person who exists in real life, it is different than when you play fiction.

I'm very blue collar myself. So it was easy for me to embody that in a sense. It's much harder for me to embody Norrell than it is to embody Terry Donovan.

I'm interested in roles that are human, that have some sort of empathic quality.

I'm straight, but the character was too important to me to muddle his world with my private life. As a nobody, I got away with that deflection. I think it may have helped to introduce Brian as a believable gay man. Maybe not. However it played, it's been out of my hands for a long time.

Whenever I play a role, whether it's good or bad, an evil person or nice person, I believe in being a purist and going all the way with the role. If I'm going to be a villainous wrestler, I believe in going all the way with it and not breaking character and not giving away to the audience that I'm playing a role. I believe in playing it straight to the hilt.

We are trying to push the envelope with a lot of characters in 'Brothers.' We are going out of the way and being honest to our roles.

I'm in the gym pretty much every day. I've been very strict about my diet during shooting. It all helps me bring as much authenticity to the role as I can.