When I was playing, I had that passion and fire, cussing everybody out, but I had the opportunity to change that being out on the floor. But now that I'm coach, I can still have my passion, but I just have to tone it down.
It's hard being a Broadway actor going into film where you have to tone everything down. In theater, everything you're taught is to be big and broad and make everyone feel like they are right next to you, even in the last row of seats.
The only way I see myself in a serious relationship is if I am toning it down a bit.
I've always played down the drama in my films. In my main scenes, there's never an opportunity for an actor to let go of everything he's got inside. I always try to tone down the acting, because my stories demand it, to the point where I might change a script so that an actor has no opportunity to come out well.
It's sad that the BBC is toning down Dennis the Menace for a cartoon series. He is losing his weapons, catapult and peashooter, will no longer pick on Walter the Softy, and his ferocious grimace is to be replaced by a charming, boyish smile.
When I go from a role with heavy prosthetic makeup, which I've done quite a bit of as well, and then do a role where I'm not wearing any, I have to be conscious of toning everything down.
I had to go in and do the work of toning [invented "historical" bits] down in order to make them fit [in Lincoln in the Bardo]. It's like if you're an actor and you're always overacting, well, you're a bad actor. But if you're an actor who subdues yourself to the extent that's necessary, then you're really acting.
Fact is stranger than fiction. You see people walking down the street that would never be allowed on television. You have to tone it down.
