It is the first line that gives the inspiration and then it's like riding a bull. Either you just stick with it, or you don't.
If you get into the area of judging the character you're playing you're getting into a sticky area.
No one is black and white or good or bad or happy or sad or what have you. [All have] particular idiosyncrasies that make them fascinating and that's how I tend to approach a character.
There's a myth about actors saying, 'Oh no, that's not me on screen at all. I'm just acting. ' OK, if I were to say to you that's not me, that's fine. And I would tell you that I don't behave like a villain everyday, and that's true, I don't. But to say there's absolutely none of me in there is ridiculous.
The experience you have making the movie is all you have; when the movie's finished, that's for other people. But while you're doing it, that's your time on the planet, so you want it to be good.
I think that's all you can hope for as an actor when you read a script; that after the first thirty pages it has some meaning to it.
The things that you know intellectually when you're young become internalized as you get older. You realize all those clichés.
. . . the stranger is not a threat but an opportunity to grow in my view of reality, to grow in my own sense of possibility
You accomplish exactly as much as the people who serve you decide you'll accomplish and nothing more.
You do what you can with what you have. You have to work the edges whatever they are. The main thing is keeping your integrity.
I never have compared myself to Jessica Tandy in any way, and that's such a great role model for me to look at. I'm seriously going to put pictures of her in my dressing room and commune with her from now on, I think.