I get sent horror scripts every week and most of them are putrid. A lot of people think it's an easy medium but it's not. Not if you want to make ones that last.
So many times, you get sent scripts where it's, like, the token chick, where the woman is just there to serve the man in the film.
I think when you're a bigger star you get many good scripts sent to you, and you have to choose which one you're going to gravitate toward, but I just try to gravitate toward the best-written one that's been thrown my way after a lot of girls have passed on it.
You have to write a lot of scripts to get any scripts that are worth making.
I've had and probably still have a lot of bad haircuts. My mom just sent me some pictures - I don't know why she did this - but she sent me some pictures of me when I was probably like 12. I grew up in the D.C. area and I used to wear a Redskins jersey just walking around. I just had kind of a bowl haircut for a long time and no sense of style or personal hygiene.
I get sent a lot of scripts which feature him as a kind of all-purpose Victorian literary character and really understand little, if anything, about him, his life or his books.
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 try to read everything that's sent me - play scripts, movie scripts - but I've had to make a rule. If the author hasn't grabbed me by Page 25, the piece goes back with a note of apology.
When I sent those scripts, that was the lowest point of my life. We'd just had our second son, and when I went to collect them from hospital, I went to the bank to try and get some money to buy some diapers, the screen showed I've got $26 left.
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've got a big closet of scripts, and a big stack of scripts on the side of my desk, because you get a whole bunch. Nothing's going to be perfect, and I realize that; but I am a perfectionist, so you go through a lot of stuff.
Out of every 10 scripts I get sent, seven are fairly generic about an American guy who gets the girl and is involved in underground espionage activity.
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.
It's not that I'm not a horror fan, it's just that the horror scripts I've been sent have been rubbish and obvious. Because they usually are in horror films - it's just about scare factor. You're always one step ahead, you know who's going to die first, you know who's going to survive, you're going to get a jump every twenty minutes.
Coming from an immigrant background, where a lot of parents don't want their kids to be comedians, success was just showing my mom that I could make a living. I was like, if I can get my mom off my back, that was my success.
I am fortunate that I get sent scripts and get to meet people I would never have met had I not done 'Harry Potter.' But I feel I had to come out of that show and prove that I am not a one trick pony and can do other stuff.