A Quote by Mark Strong
I've never been one of those actors who plays chess with his career and goes, 'I'm going to wait now and see what project comes up that can move me to this or that level.' I take stuff as it comes, and it just so happens that it hasn't dried up yet, touch wood.
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I don't take myself seriously in the slightest, so it does amaze me that I've ended up being in all these very dark, sinister plays. But I love it because, touch wood, I'm lucky enough not to have that level of darkness in my life.
It's like they talk about how American actors have the method and English actors just kind of switch views faster. And John [Hurt] is telling me the story as he's sitting in that witness chair, and they're putting the final touches of makeup on. And he goes, "Hold on a second," to stop his story so he can do the take. And he does this incredible take. They go, "Cut." And then immediately John goes, "Anyways, so Alec, he's playing the chess." And I'm just going, "Holy crap." You get whiplash from those kinds of quick turns!
I don't separate Robert DeNiro's comedy from the serious stuff. The one thing I realize working with him in all of his work, is that he doesn't do anything unless something happens to him in scenes - unless something happens to make him react. He never came in with a set idea of how he was going to do it, he never came in with guns blazing. He would just show up and wait to see what happened.
Ever since I was a about seven or eight; I think it was seven. My brother said "I want to start acting," and me and my sister just said, "Oh we'll try it, we'll see." It was just one of those things - we were just like, "Oh, we'll see what happens." So we ended up - all my siblings and me - we ended up just trying it, and I got that one role on In Plain Sight and then we just decided to keep going and see what happens. And then: Hunger Games.
I've seen those mistakes where I could have just given an easy layup or quick dump pass just to get my teammates going, so I watched a lot of stuff on that. Now I see it, now I can make those plays and make sure I feed my teammates.
For actors, when you first get the project and you see that it's a Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman-produced project, right away, from an acting standpoint, you go, 'Wow. That'd be great to be part of that. What a career move that'd be.'
I've been poked fun of throughout my career by fellow actors for my notes that I take. I have spiral notebooks that I carry with me on every project I do, and I take notes just so that if I have to relive a scene, if I have to go back, I know what I did.
Bad stuff happens.
Sometimes it makes no sense at all. Sometimes its unfair.
Sometimes, it just plain sucks.
Bad stuff happens sometimes.
Always remember that, but remember that you have to move on somehow. You just pick your head up and stare at something beautiful like the sky, or the ocean, and you move the hell on.
Life stuff happens. You get knocked down, and you get back up. That's just always been my mentality. I'm not really fazed by anything. It's in the past. There's nothing I can really do about it now. You learn from it, and you move on.
When I analyse a position, I have a sparring partner who understands chess amazingly well. In a way I feel sorry for him, because of his work with me he cannot play as much chess as he wants. He more or less gave up his playing career.
There have been times in my adolescence where I gave up. I was like, 'I'm just never going to be pretty. I'm never going to be like one of those people on the front of magazines.' It always seemed really strange to me that the projection of how people are in advertisements looked nothing like the people who were actually buying them. You know what I mean? I never understood that mismatch, and now I really start to see that the people you see in the media are a lot more like people actually are.
One of the things that's been nice about my career is that I've been able to do so many different things, and variety keeps your creative soul fulfilled. I'm constantly looking to find new things to do. It's just project to project for me. You never know where the next thing's going to come from.
Kids don't say, "Wait." They say, "Wait up, hey wait up!" Because when you're little, your life is up. The future is up. Everything you want is up. "Hold up. Shut up! Mum, I'll clean up. Let me stay up!" Parents, of course, are just the opposite. Everything is down. "Just calm down. Slow down. Come down here! Sit down. Put... that... down."
I'm going to die with Alexander's hand on my face, Tatiana thought. That is not a bad way to die. I cannot move. I can't get up. Just can't. She closed her eyes and felt herself drifting. Through the haze in front of her she heard Alexander's voice. "Tatiana, I love you. Do you hear me? I love you like I've never loved anyone in my whole life. Now, get up. For me, Tatia. For me, please get up and go take care of your sister. Go on. And I'll take care of you.
There is stuff going on inside me. But I have always been told to go out there and pitch like you can't tell if you just struck somebody out or just gave up a home run. If something bad happens, I don't dwell on it. Just give me the ball and let me pitch.
I know it affected me when I saw certain actors growing up. I had a drama teacher that would take us to see plays in New York, and it was seeing James Earl Jones and Raul Julia - I mean, this guy comes from the place my mother comes from. He's doing Shakespeare right now, and it doesn't seem to matter that he has an accent.
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