My job as an actor is to serve the script. If I'm looking at it as to see what the best character is, then it's not really looking at the big picture.
People still tweet me like, "Oh my god, I just found out you guys are married!" Which makes sense to me because I'm not the type of person who is like, "I love this actor, let me find out everything about their lives. "
My father was brought up in an orphanage in the Catskills. He was a factory worker. And because his family wasn't there for him, family was everything. We could disagree inside the house, but outside the house it was us against the world. So when I became a drag actor, he looked sideways but said okay.
I started to act in highschool and became a professional actor at 19.
Reason is the historian, but passions are the actors.
I'm still trying to figure myself out as an actor.
If no one on the movie has met me before or knows me, that's the easiest. I don't do a lot of things that don't relate to being the person. I will try to keep it going for my other actors. I want them to do the least amount of pretending as possible.
The fictional work is a kind of actor that wears a satirical garb but can put on other costumes as well.
What I wish more than anything is that I could start getting press about my work as an actor. That is what I do. I'm not a criminal.
Business is very personal. For me, everything is extremely personal. With actors, the fact that I write helps, because when you say to an actor "Oh I want you to do it a little bit more. . . ," without saying what you want more of, then the actor doesn't know what to do. But if you can put into words exactly what you want, then the experience of writing is helpful with that.
Let's be honest, any show will live or die based on how good the characters are, how good the actors are, how complicated the relationships are, how grounded they are and how much heart they have.
The whole thing with comedy is that you are always in control. Writer, director, actor, producer, and sometimes bouncer. And you are just a piece of their puzzle.
There's a level of confidence in the actor you're working with that really helps a lot. It makes all the difference.
As an actor, you try and be cool, but one of the reasons you become an actor is because you're a film fan. And then you're like, 'Oh my god, Ridley Scott just spoke to me!'
As the lead actor, you naturally get involved with a show.
I doubt I'm more secure than Meryl Streep. I guess actors just never feel secure.
I always give one actor an emotion to make it very easy so he or she can root to it.
I chose the actors that I was in love with. I cannot work with people that I don't personally like a lot. They can be the best actor in the world, but if the first contact is not good, if I don't fall in love with them, then I don't want to work with them. It's impossible.
In every shoot, between the actor and the director there is manipulation. I'm not saying that negatively. It's healthy.
In the end, the actor's main power is the power to say, 'No. '