I’m a harsh critic, you know? I am.
As an actor, I feel like I’m somebody who, when somebody gives me a mark, I don’t want to hit it. I don’t like that. But then, without even knowing it, I just hit it.
I’m open to whatever people want to call me.
Romance is important, but to have a friend you can use as a mirror, who can give you an objective response, that’s what’s really important.
Even as an actor, I think like a storyteller. My parents raised us to look at the script.
I’ve decided as an actor the only, the power I have really is in the performance. It’s the only real place I get to sort of communicate.
In work, never have any regrets and always leave everything on the field.
I have an overactive brain, and as a result of that, I can really get in my own mind. So I like to try and exercise it to the point of exhaustion.
I think I work as hard as I do now, because of a lot of lessons I’ve learned early on.
Really, contrary to popular belief, I like to have a good time and not take myself too seriously.
Do I take care of my body and take conditioning seriously? Yes.
At Columbia there’s no performing arts department, so I was searching for it everywhere I could, and I took some photography classes and I ended up becoming fascinated with Eastern Religion, and ultimately it seemed to encompass the more abstract mind that I have.
I wasn’t really quite sure where Heath Ledger came from, and I think that’s the feeling most people got when they were around him and why he was so extraordinary.
I think, in the initial process of discovering a character and the analytical process – and this is what I did take from Buddhism – initially I think there has to be an analytical, intellectual approach. And that has to be abandoned by the time you’re playing the game.
The best thing that I got was rehearsing with my father. It was always about the process of figuring things out, and trying something new, and having another take on something and keeping it alive.
I hope I’m a spiritual person. I’m trying to be a spiritual person.
Crazy people don’t sit around wondering if they’re nuts.
There’s always an intellectual side to the films Ang Lee’s doing and to the characters, and there’s such a deep knowledge when you’ve worked with the actors that he’s worked with, on stage in particular, but also in film.
I promise that, one day, everything’s going to be better for you.
When you find theater writing like in the theater on film but it’s realistic, it doesn’t matter who the character is, you want to do it.