A Quote by Michael K. Williams
For me, the best experience is to get to watch all of these different actors that come to the different seasons and bring these A-game performances. I'm just like, "Wow, can you do that again, so that I can take notes? How did you do that?!" That's the greatest joy, in doing a show like 'Hap and Leonard: Mucho Mojo'. I get to watch all of these thespians come rip it a new asshole.
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There are worse things in life to be attached to then seven seasons of Hap and Leonard: Mucho Mojo. It's in Atlanta, and we shoot during the fourth quarter of the year, so the weather is great. It's good Christmas money. I'm telling good stories with someone who I admire. Life could be worse. It could be a whole lot worse, at this stage in the game.
When I was young I was on punishment a lot and I used to watch a lot of TV, and I asked myself a question: 'How come people like Mike? How come they like Magic? How come they like Bird? How come they don't like the big guys?' So I just throw a little bit of what they were doing. You smile, you act crazy and silly. And I think people like me because I'm different. I've always been a class clown type of guy. It comes natural.
You can get a million different opinions from different people, but I always like to watch myself to see what I did and how I performed because the best critic is yourself.
I don't think there's a ton of new new stuff about doing a sitcom or doing a multi-camera show, but they work. They're fun, and they're energetic, and they're short. And when you fall in love with one - like, I will watch Seinfeld, I'll watch Will & Grace, all those reruns. I just can never get enough. I watch the same ones over and over and over. I watch the same movies that make me laugh over and over and over. I was hoping to be part of something like that.
It's very hard to watch your team and not be there, but it's also cool in a different way. You get to watch them from a different perspective and you see everything and you get to analyze the game.
Just like my career, I've sung the same songs night after night in so many ways. It's always different because every space is different. I lost my mojo once. It was like Austin Powers. I don't know why or how, but I had to get it back. And I did.
I ran into my old friend Michael Kenneth Williams, who I worked with on a show called 'The Philanthropist' for NBC. He was going to be doing this show called 'Hap and Leonard.' He was playing Leonard, and they were looking for somebody to play Hap.
I watch a lot of different films. A lot of different performances and I find a lot of little things from the films or things that actors do or people in real life who have behaviors or idiosyncrasies that I like or find interesting and I try to remember that. And then I'll do a prayer. I'll do a prayer to ask the character or the spirit of the character to come and visit me. And let's work together.
I like to watch the top teams in different countries, like Spain or Bayern Munich in Germany. The rest I don't watch. I have nothing to do with that. I'm not a freak. I know guys who watch every game. I'm not like that.
I love comedy. I don't approach it any different. I'm not a comedian. I'm not a stand-up. I just do it like a part and personally, I love to watch comedies. If you don't get to do what you like to watch you get frustrated.
If young actors ask me things, I always tell them to get on set and watch how it's done. If you can, watch the people that you like, how they work.
For me, it's important to get back to fundamentally what it feels like to be an American. We all come from different backgrounds, but we come together and create this world. It's like a microcosm for the rest of the world. I want people to feel unity when they come to a show.
I have had viewers that come up to me, and they're, like, "You know, we used to watch ('Breaking Bad') as a family, and once the melted body came falling through the ceiling, my mom was just, like, 'I can't watch this show anymore. This is just way too disturbing for me.' So it's not for everybody.
On stage you never watch yourself. You just experience it, and then you go home, and you feel pretty good if you gave a pretty good performance or crappy if you didn't. But in TV and film, you actually have to experience it while you're doing it, and then you have to watch it. And then when you're watching it, you watch it with a different sensibility than how you experienced it.
I had the best teacher in the business. Kevin Costner was my teacher. I was acting opposite him and he was directing me. The way he directed me, for which I am eternally grateful, is he would watch the scene back on the monitor, which is sort of considered unfashionable - you're not meant to watch yourself. But he was like, "Come around. Watch this. See there, you're doing a great reaction, but you're doing it out of frame." That was exactly what I needed. I learned how to act on film from him.
I really put my heart and soul into everything and I don't want a project that doesn't feel real to me or I don't get invested in. In order to drive a show for eight or 10 years or whatever the target for doing a show is, it really has to be a part of you. Because then I can come up with stories for seasons and seasons on end. I wish I had the ability to just like the idea and get people in and drive it that way through their enthusiasm. For me, it has to be a little more of a personal thing, even if it's not a completely personal story.
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