For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it.
I like playing complex, interesting characters. Sometimes I don't think there's much of a strong line between right and wrong for a character. Every character is somewhere on a moral spectrum.
The unfinished character of human beings and the transformational character of reality necessitate that education be an ongoing activity.
In every film, whether it's a fictional character or not, you create an idea of the character and for me I always do a bad impersonation to start with.
You're in everyone's homes every week as this character, and they feel like they know you, and then they start to really define you as this character that you portray.
Every character a writer creates has some of themselves in it somewhere.
I believe in method acting. Whenever I'm working on a character, I start behaving like him. I start doing these things which the character would normally do. Maybe that's the way I function as an actor, and I believe in it. And that's how I try and portray a character.
I try to look at every role the same way, regardless of whether the character is real or the character is a fantasy. I always start from myself, because you have to know yourself first.
I think every time you take a female character, a black character, a Hispanic character, a gay character, and make that the point of the character, you are minimalizing the character.
Every writer I know got their start in a library somewhere. We read a book, and we thought, 'I want to do that.'
Most actors will tell you this - I don't really know how to connect, empathize with, or make worthy of any revelation a character that doesn't have love in there somewhere, that doesn't have an idealism or an empathy in there somewhere.
Sometimes you got to start somewhere. And it's cool, as long as where you start is not where you plan on finishing.
Don't wait for perfection before you start. Start somewhere so you can have something tangible you can work to perfect.
I believe if you want to build up to something, you have to start somewhere - you have to start today and maybe tomorrow won't exist.
The issue of "who we are" has been an ongoing one. It's part of the ongoing identity crisis of America.
It's really an organic sort of process. You start off with the character on the page. You fall in love with that character and you have to represent that character well and I think it's just an evolution there. Using the accent and speaking the lines with the accent in fact opens the door to who the character really is.