When I do a horror or a fantasy film it all boils down to something in the script that surprises me. It could be a big thing or a small moment. If it's there I'll do it.
I think that it's fun to get the script and open it like a Christmas present. That's 'Alcatraz' or anything that I'm working on. If the groundwork has been laid too much, the surprises aren't there.
It's funny. When I saw the script in my inbox and it said 'Sparkle,' I thought, 'For real? It's really called 'Sparkle?' I was wondering, too, how does 'Jordin Sparks as Sparkle' sound?
You have no idea what's going to happen [in Downton Abbey] until you get the script. We roughly knew a couple of the key points that were going to happen, but when I got the last episode, I turned to the last page to check that I was still alive.
Often in television, you read a script and you're amazed that you get the scene given to you.
I like when an audience doesn't know what's going to happen to a character, and I like when I don't know. I'm learning, too - I don't get the script, like, until the last day.
With 'Lost,' some members of the cast would literally open the script and find out that they were dead. I mean, that's quite sad, really.
I'd be just another Marvel fan, only with a little bit bigger smile, when I would get the script and be like, "Oh, my gosh, Agent Coulson knows that?