If you like vanilla, you’re not going to like ‘Breaking Bad’ – you need to like a specific flavor that is unusual, that is different, that takes risks.
As a director you come in and tell the actors how good they are.
Pot always just made me sleepy.
You get addicted to emotions. Our endorphins kick in and it’s like a high. On the low end you might love roller coasters. On the high end you might be a bank robber or something.
Luck is a component that a lot of people in the arts sometimes fail to recognise: that you can have talent, perseverance, patience, but without luck you will not have a successful career.
If something is well-written, it has a chance to be good and if it’s not well-written, it will not be good. It could even become popular, but it won’t be good.
When actors first come up, you’re auditioning for everything – you’re trying to sniff it out like a pig with a truffle and you would do anything!
What’s great about well-written material is, if you can shock with justifiable actions, that’s the best.
The only thing that we as actors really can control is to be able to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the material.
I don’t really relax. When I sleep, I relax.
I have a lovely family who supports me and it’s great.
I think naturally, if you’re an actor, there’s a high level of assertiveness that you need to have to survive this business. There’s boldness in being assertive, and there’s strength and confidence.
I love acting because it’s empowering. It empowers me.
My dear friend Aaron Paul, I love you so much.
I think it’s not a question of why, more a question of why not.
I appreciate my role as an actor much more after I direct because it’s just easier.
I think, and I mean this sincerely, I was raised humbly. We were a lower middle income family and a household that was scrimping by at times. We were watching the dollar, stretching the dollar, and coupons. It was all those things.
There’s so many things that can go wrong in the execution of a project like a television show or a movie, so many little elements, any number of things, all the way to marketing – like they could market it poorly and nobody finds it and down it goes.
I think if you believe in past lives, I must have been an extremely deprived being. I must have been mistreated, beaten, and forced into indentured servitude because this life has just been phenomenal.
Hollywood has known this for quite a while: Cable is the place to go because they truly have a supportive network and they want to do things that cannot be seen on broadcast. That stimulates the writer-producer. Cable is king.
To me, character in a person is judged by the decisions that are made under pressure.