A Quote by Greg Mottola
I remember on my very first film, which Steven Soderberg executive-produced, he said, 'Try not to repeat yourself. Do things that scare you.' Even if it's a challenge, I want people to say that this guy tried this thing. Hopefully he learned from it.
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I've never been funny. I don't think I'm funny. People say I'm funny. I go, 'No. No. I'm not.' But again, knowing what it means to film on a TV show and on film, you have to repeat, repeat, repeat. You have to do the same thing a number of times if you're filming a sequence. And to carry that energy in a comedic mode, would be a challenge that I really would frightfully scared, but I'd have to buck up and pull up my bootstraps and say, 'I can do this. Let's figure it out.'
There are things that make me excited about what I'm doing: Trouble the Water [the 2008 documentary Glover executive produced] on New Orleans, or something like Soundtrack for a Revolution, about the power of the music of the civil rights movement [which he executive produced in 2009]. Or Bamako, about the African debt crisis, a platform to discuss the experience of people who actually live it. All of these are important ways we can use film as a forum inviting people into a dialogue.
I remember being on this film once, and people said, 'You're not on Instagram or Facebook - what's your deal?' They said, 'In this industry, if you want to do well, people want to invest in who you are.' I said, 'I'm an actor, not a celebrity - they watch my acting, and hopefully that's enough.'
It seems like people want to blame me for everything. Whenever any issue arises, I'm said to have been involved even if I've had nothing to do with it. That's why I always focus on what I know, which is playing football, and try to be very careful with what I say because people always try and twist things.
Actors, by nature, are insecure. I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing. It is good to question yourself, be self-analytical. You get a better performance if you challenge yourself. If you go around thinking you're great, you're never going to challenge or scare yourself.
The Underneath was my first film. Steven Soderbergh. I remember that I thought, "Wow, this is such a highlight. Am I ever going to get back to this?" Loved working with Steven and in Austin, Texas, one of the rockin'-est towns in America. I'll always remember it, because I was really grateful that someone finally hired me for a movie.
I try not to repeat a story. I try not to repeat an emotion. I want it to be all sort of new for the viewers and to challenge myself as a writer, so there's always pressure. What else can you come up with?
You want roles that challenge you and that scare you a little and where you can really discover something, even about yourself, that maybe you didn't understand.
When I did the first edit of Les plages, it was very dry and very square in a way. I was just saying the minimum. I said, Well, if this is the minimum, I don't make it. So I tried to make it more refined. I tried to find images, allegorical images, that I could use to express things that I didn't want to say or didn't want to show or I was not able to find how to show.
I always say, "Don't let a 'no' or even a dismissal defeat you, let it be the fire that makes you want to go. Every time someone says, "No," that makes me even more determined. That's one of the things I want to try to teach young people. Oddly, the other thing I want to teach the young people is to get a hobby. That's what I first say: "Do something that brings you happiness other than acting, because this business is so fickle." I make blankets and stuffed animals. I don't know. I'm a weirdo.
I'll say initially acting was my first love, and that's what I pursued. But then, so far as even my first day on a film set, and just watching how things were set up, I just said, 'I think I want to be in charge.' I am very much type-A. I am a bit of a control freak.
But I remember the morning after The Mask of Virtue-which is the first play I did at the West End-that some critics saw fit to be as foolish as to say that I was a great actress. And I thought, that was a foolish, wicked thing to say, because it put such an onus and such a responsibility onto me, which I simply wasn't able to carry. And it took me years to learn enough to live up to what they said-for those first notices. I find it so stupid. I remember the critic very well, and have never forgiven him.
I generally go into a movie with a very strong vision, with how I want to make the film, how I want to shoot the film, how I want to edit the movie, what I want the sound to sound like. So I have a very concrete idea even if I don't storyboard it, I know exactly what I want to do once I get into the sequence. Now having said that, I try not to let that slave me to the process. So if I do storyboard a sequence I don't necessarily stick to it if I discover more exciting things on set.
I only want to make movies that I believe in, that I care about and that mean something to me. At the end of the day, that's the only reason I'm doing this. Hopefully I can continue to grow and challenge myself to try to do things I've never done before, and make different kinds of movies that still maintain what makes the film my film.
I've never been the battle guy that people perceive me as. I don't even want to battle. I take it to the people, man. I say what I got to say. You know what I'm saying? I'm like the guy that has the gun and shoots you when you try to rob him, you know? I don't really pull out the inches and try to shoot the brothers.
"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet . Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.
"What's that?" the Unbeliever asked.
"Wisdom from the Western Taoist,"I said.
"It sounds like something from Winnie-the-Pooh," he said.
"It is," I said.
"That's not about Taoism," he said.
"Oh, yes it is," I said.
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