It’s obvious that if you’re going to play a character you need to amass information about that person and about their environment or their era that they’re in and use as little or as much as necessary
I’m interested in pressure, I’m interested in duress. All the great works of art, or film or literature, in my opinion, have elements of those in them.
I’ve had the pleasure and the great luck to work with some incredible actors over the years and you have to observe and learn and take something from it and try and become better yourself.
From a very young age I had an ambition to be a musician, and to do that professionally. That’s what I pursued until I was about 20, playing in bands that were taken pretty seriously at that stage.
I’ve always felt kind of safe on stage, protected. I’ve talked to other performers about this and they feel the same things, particularly in the live arena. I never get nervous going on stage to do a play. Doing film or television I’ll have more butterflies.
I think if you play characters, it’s very important not to ever tag them with any sort of disorder, or diagnose them, or whatever. You have to normalize the behavior to get inside the character.
I try not to think retrospectively. It’s important, as an artist, to look forward, always. I do try to take work that involves some challenge. If you approach a piece of work and you’re going, “Yeah, yeah, I can do that,” then that’s kind of a red flag.
You take the job very seriously and between action and cut, that’s where your focus should be. And then there’s a lot of levity in between and a lot of good fun.
If you behave like a celebrity, then people will treat you like a celebrity, and if you don’t, they won’t. There’s not much to write about me in the tabloids.
