My mother always tells me, ‘Nathan, you’re very much a geek, but your strength is that you look mainstream. So no one can tell just by looking at you.’ I think this is true.
I’m living in Los Angeles, I’m in films and I’m on television, and I’m working with actors and telling stories. I’m living the fantasy. My worst day is a great day.
When people embrace character, it informs their living, breathing moments in a scene so well.
I’m not a big prop actor.
When you slick back your hair, you get a really good idea of just how melon-like your head actually is.
There’s only one spot in history for the first ever of anything.
It’s a thrill to be a fan amongst fans.
It’s hard to shake a stick at success.
I relate to those characters – and any character I play – in as much as I put myself in their positions and feel how I would personally deal with their experiences.
I think about my own daily choices every day in terms of how to find happiness.
Somebody once said that you can never act and be another person; you’re only acting facets of yourself. I think there’s a lot of truth in that.
I’m not a famous celebrity of any kind. I’m a guy from Edmonton who’s got a great job and I’m loving it.
What draws me to roles, I think, are moments – moments that define character, where so much more of the story is told in just a moment – a look, a line, a short scene, but something that speaks a volume, something that speaks to me.
I think maybe, if I could be a Canadian super hero, I’d have some kind of freezing power and some sort of maple syrup weapon. Could be a little sticky.
When you work on a soap opera, that’s three years of you working every day. There was no time to do anything other than the soap opera – you’re locked in.
I slowly came to realize that this job of being an actor, you spend most of your time looking for work. That is your job. Your job is auditioning. You spend very little of your time actually working.
I have jobs that I’ve preferred more than others simply because I’ve gotten to meet and make friends with great people. I’ve pulled at least one very close friend from every project I’ve done.
When I was very young, before I could read, I remember being very interested in comic books.
The wooden shelves were tall and packed with worn covers of books read many times over. Pages were yellowed and paperbacks had arched spines like old sway-backed horses. It was an old folks’ home for secondhand books, with that smell of old newsprint and slightly musty wood smell.
I don’t want my last words to be, ‘Oh god, a tiger is eating my face. My beautiful, beautiful face’.
I have found the secret, you see. To become a superhero, all you have to do is want it badly enough, and comics are the fuel to that fire.