A Quote by Jake Gyllenhaal
As an actor, no matter what, you're at the whim of so many other people all the time.
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As an actor, you do feel very powerless... you are at the whim of the agent who submits you for a project, and then at the audition, you are at the whim of the casting director who will cast you or not.
The god of theater laughs in your face at planning. You can't plan as an actor; there's no way, because so much of it is dependent on other people's choices and decisions that you're at the whim of fate, really.
New York is a glamorous city, constituted mostly of nobodies. They crave the lights, and if they tell you differently, they're lying. Only dreamers come to New York. As a matter of course, few people have control of their lives. You live at the whim of your boss, your landlord, your grocer, the stranger, the judge, the bus driver, the mayor who won't let you smoke. On the other hand, you live at the whim of your whims, and that is the most exciting thing there is.
The other, the other aspect when I say I'm an actor is that as an actor you make this imaginative leap into being somebody else, that's to say the muscle of the imagination is as important as any other of the muscles in your body, and so it is something about this instinct in space and time which for me I associate with being an actor rather than a director.
I think sometimes as an actor your career and life are kind of dependent on other people's decisions, what other people tell you, what time other people tell you to get up in the morning, what lines people tell you to say.
I have been in the industry for many years now, but people still come up to me and say, 'Sir, you're such a good actor. We loved watching you in that movie. What's your name?' While any other actor might get offended, I don't mind this at all.
You
cannot assume that somebody can define you. You cannot
assume that the other person is right. No matter how they
say it to you, no matter with how much force they say, ‘Oh
my god, you’ll never make it; oh my god, you’re not bright;
you could never do this’—that’s one person. I can’t tell you
how many people told me I would never be an actor.
I never was a person that wanted that life...I'm a leader not a follower. I don't care what they say, or what they're doing or what they're wearing. Go ahead, cos come Judgement Day, all of that won't matter. How many people did you help. How many people did you talk to. How many people did you try to encourage. How many people did you bring to God. That's what's gon' matter.
I run the Actor's Studio on the West Coast, and one of the things I say all the time to the people I teach - many of whom are acting teachers - is that an actor needs to make choices that make him present.
It don't matter how many rallies or protests I go to. It don't matter how many songs I make spreading positivity or sending a message. It don't matter how much time I spend within the community. It don't matter that I have a black wife. Being a white person in America, you represent being a benefactor of slavery of what this country was built on.
It had been a whim, and there was nothing Magnus attached more importance to than a whim.
I choose not to be at the whim of others. I want to be at my own whim.
Not many foreigners move to Paris for their dream job. Many do it on a romantic whim.
I'm not curing cancer. I'm not saving lives. It's my job. I'm an actor. It's a good, fun job. People enjoy it, but there are many other people who are doing so many things that are more worthwhile. I just don't see anything that special about it. I see it as entertaining.
No matter what, I will always prefer a live performance. Whether it be a play or a musical, or playing music live. As long as it's live, it's the best because there's sort of an immediacy to connection between an audience and a performer, whereas where you do film or television, you're at the whim of so many different forces.
I toyed with the notion of being an actor, and am so glad that this whim did not go any further.
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