A Quote by Aasif Mandvi
The pleasure from acting comes from having great writing to work with. If it's well written and the character is interesting, then, as an actor, that's the raw material I need.
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When the material written is very good then half of your work is done by the writer itself. When there's a well-defined character written, then the attempt is to be as honest to the material as possible.
I can't negotiate and collaborate with a character to create a distilled dramatic investigation of the raw material. I need to work with an actor. That stuff about actors who stay in character all the time is nonsense.
That's where everything starts, as an actor: you've gotta have great writing and great character development, and then you have really great materials to work from.
I write about people I think are interesting, and then I discuss it with my editor, and she decides if she thinks it will be interesting to children as well. If I have no great interest in the subject, I find the work to be terribly boring. And if I find the person interesting, I love the research part and, by extension, the writing as well.
As an actor, you don't want to ever get too comfortable where you're like, "I know this character," and you don't do the work anymore. Then, there's something that you're going to miss. If you always stay hungry to learn more about your character, that's a healthy thing, while having a great sense of who she is, at the core.
My background is really being a writer's actor - that seems to be the way I work best, bringing out the best of writing. There's a whole range of acting skills, and some people can be astonishing with very poor material. That's not me; my skill is essentially unlocking the writing.
I'm looking forward to, as an actor, having to do some stuff that's out of my comfort zone. It makes for interesting work and when you're uncomfortable doing something; then it's going to be interesting when they film it.
I feel like some of the best talent is on TV right now, with the writing, acting and great directors. I've also been looking for the consistency of work that TV provides for you. And, I always thought it would be really interesting to live with a character for months, if not years.
It's been great, I have to dig deep for really raw emotions and at the same time I have to use my intellect to say the ridiculous medical jargon while acting and treating a patient and then I have to try to have a personality and emotions as well. So it is definitely hard work.
The ability to stretch my range into all genres and characters is something I take great pleasure in doing. I thoroughly enjoy it. I consider myself a character actor, though some think of me as a leading man. As an actor, I love shifting gears from character to character, and the more range I can expand, the better.
My hope is always to be able to find well-written, interesting material with good people and then actually be able to get those jobs.
A good actor always sets you straight. If you've written a false moment and thought it was probably pretty great, the actor's gonna show you when he gets to that moment. They're the great test of the validity of the material.
Some actors come to casting and ask me, "Didn't you see my previous roles?" We do not work with actors like this. Their previous roles do not matter; I need the actual work with an actor in this particular character that has been written in our script. What matters is flexibility, believability and efficiency of an actor.
The best adaptations are the ones that really excavate the material. The movies that work are the ones in which somebody very smart figured out how to take all the thematic material, all the character material, all the filigree, all the beautiful writing and put it into a story.
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.
I find myself absolutely fulfilled when I have written a poem, when I'm writing one. Having written one, then you fall away very rapidly from having been a poet to becoming a sort of poet in rest, which isn't the same thing at all. But I think the actual experience of writing a poem is a magnificent one.
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