A Quote by Glenn Close
So I'm always inspired by my fellow actors. And that's kind of a constant for me. I have huge respect for our profession and our craft. And I seek in my work to create connections, first for me with the character and then the character with the other actors, and then ultimately, all of us together connecting with the audience in a way that sometimes is subliminal, even.
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There should always be that leeway because if you think of your character as sort of absolutely fixed, then you just try and find actors to come and do exactly that thing, then you're not gonna be working with that actor's own set of internal impulses and who they are, so the best work is always a coming together of the actor and the character.
As a young actor, I was advised to bide my time. Back then, there weren't good roles for someone like me. There were handsome leading men and character actors for smaller supporting roles. But I was told to hang in there, and it was good advice. We're all character actors now. Even a handsome man is a character actor at my age.
Particularly, the actors, to have analyzed the script in great detail from the point of view of their specific character. So that they have a handle on exactly where the character is in the chronology of things. In that sense the actors become your best check on the logic of the piece, and the way in which it all fits together. They become essential collaborators. The main thing is you have to work with very smart actors.
The first thing that happens is the cleansing of the former character. I don't think a lot of actors talk about it, but there is usually a process where you essentially purge yourself of the character played prior to the movie. Then you want to think about what the character represents, and you write down all of the elements about this character and then take the time to find some synchronicity and start breathing the character.
We shouldn't confuse singers and performers with actors. Actors will say, "My character this, and my character that." Like beating a dead horse. Who cares about the character? Just get up and act. You don't have to explain it to me.
The actor has to have some degree of craft, along with the talent. No one tries to laugh except bad actors. No one tries to cry except bad actors. How a character hides his feelings tells us who he is. Most people don't know that, and most actors don't do that. Therefore, there are a lot of actors who put me to sleep, that are considered good actors, but they're predictable and boring. I know how the scene is going to end before it ends.
I love what I do. And in the true sense, from my training, I try to create a character each time. It is something I do. But I don't want that term to limit what I can do. I prefer people to say to me, 'You're one of my favorite actors,' rather than 'You're one of my favorite character actors.' It sounds like a slam.
There's two types of character actors. There's character actors who play all different characters. Or there's actors who always play the same part; they're just a bit funny-looking.
For me, a lot of these actors are new. For me, I only worked with Finn Whittrock and Michael Chiklis. So a lot of these actors are people I've been a huge fan of for years and are bucket-list actors for me to get to work with. It's pretty surreal now getting to step into scenes with them.You all get to find your characters together.
I don't see myself as one type of actor. When you get one role, you start to get cast in that role for awhile because that's what people have seen you do, and have hopefully seen you do it successfully. And so, it becomes an easier thing to see you as, for casting directors and directors, and they start to think of you as that particular person or type of character. But, for me, I'm just an actor, first and foremost. The actors I respect are the real character actors, who are the real chameleon actors that completely change from role to role.
I seek a diverse spectrum of roles. If I just was in a large-budget feature for a younger audience, then I want to find a smaller, more character-driven piece that might be for a more mature audience. Or if I'm playing a goofier character, then maybe I want to go play a serious, psychopathic character. But at the same time, it's usually a case-by-case basis where I'm judging the merit of a role by the script I'm given, and it usually has less to do with the larger framework and more to do with how the part personally appeals to me in that moment.
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.
I really feel our job as actors is to find a human experience in the character. So, for me, genre comes second; it's about script and the emotional journey of that character. Genre definitely has an impact, but it has more of an impact on the way the character is expressed. We all have the same core emotions of love, jealousy, rage - it's just how they're expressed.
It's one of the reasons why Spider-Man: Homecoming is so exciting. Because it's a new genre for us, a new character, the first time that Spider-Man is in our cinematic universe and you can see what he was meant to be in the comics. He's such a young teenager in comparison to these other heroes. But I think, because we're film fans who go and see everything, it's much more natural that you're inspired by other work. And then of course that influences your work, and the way you make films.
Death marks our careers as actors - it's often what flings us back into unemployment, the unknown, the insecurity that is the true constant in our profession... and it must be celebrated.
With movies, you come and go as an actor, especially if you are not the lead, from week to week. You don't really have a lot of time to get to know anyone, and then on to the next thing. I know a lot of actors who find fulfillment in playing an entirely new character. I like to stick with one character and create a family with the people around me.
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