I grew up in an artists community in New York, in a building that was government-subsidised for artists. No one made any money, but they made art for the sake of art.
I always want another actor to shine in my scene because it makes the film stronger. I would encourage people to scene steal, because filmmaking is a collaborative effort.
I was the oldest of the children in my family. I had to do a lot of diaper-changing and lunch-making. I was taking my little sister to ballet, picking up my brother, sort of being a super-nanny.
You live these three months in this reality, in this dark reality, you don’t want to do those films every year because they’re taxing. I started smoking a lot of cigarettes.
When you come onto the set, everything should be focused around your character and you should stay in the pocket, as much as possible. Every actor has their own process. For me, I really need to stay in the pocket.
I am flattered that they think that many people would enjoy my work. I don’t approach any genre a different way than I may approach another one. I treat every role I do like a role worthy of applying whatever kind of tactic, process and talent I have.
I’m an actor. I can do whatever I want. As an actor, not everything has to be the most obvious choice. And sometimes, the best thing you can do is to defy expectations.
I’m a fantasy guy. So I brought the fantasy element to the Riddick, David Twohy brought the sci-fi, and it came together.You see that in every aspect of the film.
If you had asked me back in grade school what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said my first choice was an actor, but if I couldn’t be that, I’d want to be a superhero.
Filmmaking is such a collaborative piece of art that you can’t look to one person – you couldn’t look to me, you couldn’t say, ‘Because Vin’s in it, it’s this or that.’ It’s really all of us coming together for that period of time to try and make magic.
