Meditation is nothing but coming to terms with your inner emptiness: recognizing it, not escaping; living through it, not escaping; being through it, not escaping. Then suddenly the emptiness becomes the fullness of life.
Music is so powerful to me. I had my IPod and headphones, and my sad playlist. I kind of ventured off for just a little bit to get into the scene.
I'm not the kind of actor who runs around and insists on being called Stravinsky by everybody, and my family has to call me Igor. I'm not that kind of actor. I think that's pretentious.
Whether or not I am a 'character actor' or any other kind of actor, I really don't know. When people call me a 'character actor,' I fail to understand what it means.
Forget about what you are escaping from. Reserve your anxiety for what you are escaping to.
escapism isn't good or bad in itself. what is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to.
In fact, Salman Khan is a kind of an actor who doesn't take anyone's limelight while shooting. He is a very secure actor. He has some kind of aura around him. He is least bothered as to which actor is getting how much screen space.
I think the reason I'm an actor is the joy I find from escaping and going to be somebody else. That's what I have fun doing.
My dream was I was going to be an actor. Racism occurred to me. It dawned on me that I would not be an actor. It occurred to me that I was not white. It occurred to me that being what they call colored, being a Negro, was some kind of a disadvantage.
'Transformers' was important and defining for me because it taught me about what kinds of movies I want to make and the kind of actor I want to be, and I have a long way to go before I become that actor.
You can't worry too much about profile; otherwise, you become a different kind of actor, and that's not the kind of actor I want to be.
I think parts of my soul have been saved by my writing, not in the sense of escaping death, but escaping the death of the moment, perhaps.
You can say something that can really help and actor and you can say something that can really get in the way of an actor's performance, kind of cut them off from their instincts and really get into their heads. And every actor's different. Every actor requires something different. Being an actor, for me, was the greatest training to be a writer and director.
I'm not one that really soaks up the limelight. I'm OK with kind of escaping it.
I guess lyrically they're similar because they're talking about escaping the kind of misery that likes company. 'The Last One Alive,' for me, is very simple. It's just about alienation, really, that causes anger.
Because I came to acting quite late, I kind of think one of the few attributes that I do have is that I try to be honest with the character, with the writing. I'm not a tricksy actor; I'm not exactly a scenery-chewing kind of actor.