A Quote by Tom Conti
It's all good fun - television and movies and so on - but the good thing in theatre is there's nothing and no one between you and the audience so you can do what you want really.
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In theatre you can't ad lib, so you want to pick really good material, like David Mamet or Shakespeare or whatever. You want to be really careful about what you do. But in the movies, you do have more wiggle-room. You do have more opportunities to improvise. It's fun to improvise, but I still think it's better to have a great script.
The main thing is to do each project the way you want, and if they find an audience, that's terrific. And if they don't, there's nothing you can do anyway, so don't let it concern you that much. An awful lot of good movies have done badly and an awful lot of bad movies have done very well. There are no real rhymes or reasons for it. Sometimes the stars don't always align right. But if you've done the best you can, you feel pretty good about it.
I consider myself more of a film fan than a filmmaker, or I guess it's kind of a balance, fortunately. But I really want to see good movies as much as I want to make good movies and I want to see bizarre movies as much as I want to make bizarre movies.
Richard Donner made great movies. Seminal movies. The Academy, though, and we have to be careful here, should recognize popular films. Popular films are what make it all work. There was a time when popular movies were commercial movies, and they were good movies, and they had to be good movies. There was no segregation between good independent films and popular movies.
To be honest, I am not theatre-trained and though I am confident in my skill set, to do theatre requires a better-tuned set of muscles and I sometimes defer to actors who are better trained. But at the times I do want a shot, I'll go for it, especially if the piece speaks to me and the opportunity comes up. The immediate response from a theatre audience is so thrilling, affirming, and soul-feeding; to know how you've affected an audience at curtain can be ego-blowing, both good and bad.
As television is learning some of the movies' great tricks, movies are taking what's good from TV. Maybe it will all become one big thing, with smart, talented people who love a thing, helping each other be better.
Film is a wonderful thing and it can be so many different things. I don't want to turn my back on any of the different ways movies can be. I love the movies. I love going to the films. I like very serious films, I love foreign films, and I love big, fun movies - as long as they're well made and they've got good scripts. That's the most important thing.
I was living in London and I thought, 'There's nothing here for me anymore.' I don't want to become this actor who's going to be doing this occasional good work in the theater and then ever diminishing bad television. I thought I'd rather do bad movies than bad television because you get more money for it.
I'd love to have written a film and it to be regarded as good. I'd just like to be doing things that are good, really. I think that's all you can aim for. I find it odd when actors say they just want to do films or plays or television. A lot of films aren't very good; a lot of television isn't very good; a lot of plays aren't very good.
As far as I'm concerned, an audience is an audience. Whether it's an audience in Hull or the National Theatre, that's who you play to. It's not money - it's good to get some, but that's not why I do it. You do it because you have to, to tell a story.
I like to service the full audience of America, so I try to do things that are just real artistic, like when they don't have the most money, but it's a great piece of work. Then, there are big, fun comedies and big animated movies for kids. I want to do things for my nieces and nephews. Ultimately, we're trying to deliver something entertaining to an audience. As long as it can entertain the audience, and it makes me or my niece and nephew laugh or cry, then I think it's good.
What I love in television is when you have the banter between the presenters, that's what makes a really good programme. That's why it is so important for me to have good relationships with people I'm commentating with.
I have done some wonderful television, but you know, there's not as much exceptional material as there is in the theatre. So I do a lot of theatre, but really, as with most actors, I just love going from one to another. It's stimulating, it's diverting, it's a different way of life, and you know, I dearly like a good mix.
But actually my dad is a very talented director and not just his use of shots and camera, but he's very good with actors and he knows acting well. It's great to see him do that and be really good at it and he's been doing it for a while and he certainly knows how to make movies, and little movies I guess for a television show, and he's going to come back in November to direct a second episode, which I'm really excited about.
Only really good comedies and really good horror movies get a verbal response out of the audience. People will scream. People will laugh.
I love movies and I like a lot of good television. At the end of the project, I don't care if they changed [it from the book], I just want to look at it and go, "I loved that. That really turned out well."
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