The scripts of 'The Wire' are fantastic - the scripts of 'Breaking Bad,' the scripts of 'Mad Men,' the scripts of 'The Sopranos,' the scripts of 'Battlestar Galactica.' You could keep going on. They're incredibly well written.
I'm not an ad-libber. If I'm asked to ad-lib, I can ad-lib forever and it's really fun to do that, but I find that well-written scripts are put together very carefully. Once you start to ad-lib and add words to sentences, there's a slacking that happens. When it's good writing, it's taut. I'm not judging people who do ad-lib.
I write scripts, I read scripts, I meet people who chat about their scripts. So honestly, I don't feel bad if I don't act in a film, as long as people are making great films.
The bad man is the man who no matter how good he has been is beginning to deteriorate, to grow less good. The good man is the man who no matter how morally unworthy he has been is moving to become better. Such a conception makes one severe in judging himself and humane in judging others.
I don't prepare for anything very well. I am not a good actor. I don't read scripts.
I never think of myself as a big star. Getting good scripts is all I think about. I don't have a godfather or anyone to take care of me. To move forward, I have to be very careful in choosing the right scripts, the right director, and the right technicians.
I didn't want to be seen as just a guy on a list. I'm interested in good scripts, scripts that are about something, scripts that move your acting along.
I have been fortunate to get some really good scripts over the years and I haven't turned down anything that I regretted so far. And my manager who I've been with for over 25 years is very good at knowing what I should and shouldn't do a lot of times.
In my opinion, the vast majority of scripts written - as well as most movies that are released - are not very original, well-written, or interesting. It has always been that way, and I think it always will be.
I never thought I was very good at developing material. I grew up at the BBC where they sent you scripts.
A good script is like a work of art in itself. I've read hundreds of scripts, and good ones are very rare. If the writer has something to say, and a voice, and a plot that matches character, and an emotional trajectory that works, then I'd be an idiot to fool around with it. It's just that few scripts ever are like that.
It is well, when judging a friend, to remember that he is judging you with the same godlike and superior impartiality.
Reading aloud sounds like a good idea, but honestly, it doesn't work very well. Good dialogue in a book doesn't actually bear much resemblance to real-life dialogue. For example, if you've ever seen a word-for-word transcript of people talking, it doesn't read off the page very well. The trick is to make it *seem* like it's being spoken, not to make it speakable.
Everyone is trying to do something that hasn't been done and that's a really good thing. You can only do so much with a story and some scripts don't give you the opportunities and other scripts do give you the opportunities to do things that haven't been done before.
Okay, I am happy with the way I look, but I have never, never, ever thought of myself as a 'pretty girl.' Honestly. When I read some of these scripts I'm sent, and they describe the heroine as 'incredibly beautiful,' I wonder why they sent it to me.
Because I've been at it so long and very steadily, I have a lot of credits, but I probably have twice as many scripts that were never made for whatever reason.