To criticize Facebook is to criticize the telephone.
I know some amazing actors who are not mortified every moment of the day, so my feeling is that maybe you don’t have to be a wreck to be good.
I tend to be pessimistic about everything: If things seem to be going good, I’m worried that it’s going to end; if things are bad, then I’m worried that it’s going to be permanent. It’s not a very comfortable attitude to have all the time.
I’m kind of shocked any time somebody hires me and even more shocked any time somebody hires me to play a character like Lex Luthor, which I only knew from the public consciousness of him being a bald, brooding villain who is older than me.
I prefer playing characters that are going through turmoil. Most movie characters are just in service to the story.
First rule of magic? Always be the smartest guy in the room.
I view myself in the narrowest possible terms, but I don’t watch anything I’ve been in, and I don’t read reviews or analysis of movies I’ve been in, or my plays.
The joy of acting for me is to be able to experience emotions in a safe environment. You can’t scream and cry in the street because everybody will look. If you do it on a movie set, you get applauded.
I write plays, and I have a musical that’s starting to get produced now. That’s what I would love to do, but it’s so hard. The only reason people are reading my plays and musicals is because I’m in movies.
If you’re afraid of everything out there, you quit going out there.
When you’re acting in a movie, you never consider the reception of it. It’s impossible to predict how something will be received. Even if you think it’s the greatest thing in the world, other people might not like it. Or agree with it.
I often think if you have time to sit around the house feeling bad for yourself, you have time to tutor a child. I’m guilty of that exact thing. I will spend more time sitting around feeling bad for myself than actually helping somebody.
Who walks around proud of things they’ve done? That’s an obnoxious quality.
The only way to be turned off to being famous is to be famous.
As an actor, if I show up late somewhere or I say something that’s eccentric, it’s totally acceptable – not only that, it’s lauded in some perverse way.
I always think the second worst thing in the world is to go on stage at night, and the first worst thing in the world is sitting at home at night. For me, it’s scarier to not be doing it than doing it.
In New York, everybody is their own celebrity, so they’re not so interested in other people.
If you look at the movies that come out, most of them are bad, so it’s not as if achieving some level of success means you get offered better roles, because frankly they don’t seem to exist.
I write all the time because I’m lonely. When you’re acting, you’re working every day all day. But then you have long amounts of time off.
Nothing is harder than working with an actor who doesn’t take it seriously or show up in the same way that you are.