“Embrace your differences and the qualities about you that you think are weird. Eventually, they’re going to be the only things separating you from everyone else.”
“Violence has always been unfortunately embedded in masculinity, this alpha thing.”
“I like to be lean and flexible. I’m not interested in gaining size.”
“Sometimes it’s okay to give yourself a pat on the back and say, ‘That was cool. That made me feel good.’”
“I came here from Romania when I was 12 years old. I had an accent. High school was tough a little bit for a few years. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be good-looking. I wanted to be popular. I spent a lot of time thinking, ‘What are these people going to think of me?’”
“I was so against social media for such a long time, but now I can’t live without it.”
“Playing an unstable, bipolar, multiple-personality-disorder person is definitely up my alley.”
“My first job was in a movie theater. I worked at Cinema 6 in New City, New York. I was an usher. I sold popcorn.”
“I can’t take one day for granted. That’s usually how I think.”
“I think it gets a little harder as you find more success. As success happens, you have to figure out this question of ‘What I am going to do next that stands out?’ Because then you get seen as ‘this thing,’ which is a part of you. But it’s not really you.”
“There’s gotta be a human being in everybody, regardless of what they do or what people think they did.”
“When I work on a part, one of the things I love to do is to put together a collage of things, stuff I see or stuff that inspires me, images, whatever.”
“I know, when people are considering me for jobs, sometimes it’s, ‘Well, you’re in a comic-book movie.’ And I’m, like, ‘But I’m killing myself to try to do the best I can!’”
“I’ve gotten really good at not judging characters.”
“If you’re getting abandonment, if you’re getting abuse as a child, if you’re getting uncertainty when you’re a child, unfortunately you tend to look for that in your life later on, and you think that’s love.”
“My job as an actor is to just tell the story as best I can from my character’s point of view and let the audience decide.”
“Working out and working as an actor have gone hand in hand – I always feel more prepared if I know I have done a workout. It gives me confidence – and peace of mind.”
“I don’t think I’ve got the stuff that Broadway musicals are made of. But there are definitely many musicals that I enjoy. ‘Hair’ and ‘Rent’ might be my favorites.”
“Just to get a job is always really exciting to me. I do feel there’s a lot left for me to learn about movies, the subtleties of acting.”
“You can’t judge a character, and you’re never going to always play characters that are morally sound or know right from wrong.”
“Comic-book movies are mythology, in a way, and there are a lot more parallels in them with what’s going on in the real world than people want to discuss.”
“The things I learned from my parents, what was deeply ingrained in their generation, is this idea of opportunity and the freedom to have an opportunity. The way the United States was thought of is as a place you can have this chance to do anything, to say, ‘This is my idea, and I get to offer it to you, and if you like it, I can profit from it.’”
“Comedy is only funny when there’s real pain.”
“I was born in Romania and later lived in Vienna, Austria, for a few years, and I eventually made my way over to New York in ’95.”
“I love the ’50s and grew up loving works from that time period and from those great playwrights.”
“I specifically remember doing the musical ‘Sweet Charity’ at Stagedoor. I was playing Vittorio Vidal, which is a very funny part, and some other small roles. I couldn’t really sing that well, but there were so many fun bits, and I just remember the tremendous adrenaline rush I felt from being onstage and hearing the audience enjoying it.”
“You have to pay attention to the moments when you’ve felt on top on the world. I remember the first time I was on stage, I was doing ‘West Side Story,’ I was 17 and this woman was crying because she liked what I was doing so much.”
“I live in New York and I love it, because it doesn’t make me feel like my life is always just about acting and that world of acting. I don’t have expectations.”
“You have license in front of the camera to do things, feel certain emotions that you don’t get to in real life. It can be addicting.”
“The thing that sticks to me most about theater is that because it’s such an ape crazy nonstop experience, you really don’t have time to think about anything else. You’re just really present; you have to be, or else, you know, you can’t stop the play.”
“Sometimes with films you have a freedom to be able to, Okay, we got that take so let’s try another one where suddenly I’ll say this, or you’ll get to improv. You can’t do that with stage. We have to make it new every time, and also within the structured settings.”
“Sometimes you don’t want to get married too much to a lot of rehearsing, I feel, when it comes to film, because there’s so many technicalities. So if I’m in my head, I’ve gotten settled on something, I’m gonna have to change it if I get there and something was set that’s completely different.”
“I’ve never been ice skating, ever. I’m traumatized by the idea of it.”
“I do like ‘Game of Thrones.’ I really like it.”
“Theater is the most challenging thing to do. It’s just you out there with no rope. You can’t call time out; you’re on a roller coaster.”
“I was Danny Zuko in ‘Grease,’ and I was in the musical ‘Sweet Charity’ and then in the musical ‘On the Twentieth Century.’ They were great. I mean, singing isn’t really my strong suit, but I just really enjoyed it.”
“Most of the people I admire as actors didn’t make it until their mid-30s: the Mark Ruffalos, the John Hawkeses of the world.”
“I always look at auditions as not even getting the job as much as I’m just trying to connect with this casting director so they remember me for next time.”
“I’ve been in so many crazy experiences in my life. I was always moving when I was a kid. When I look back, it’s hard for me not to feel that certain things just happen for a reason.”
“To shoot a movie that takes place in three decades in 30 days is a lot on the hair and make-up team.”
“When I was younger, it was so much easier. All I needed to do was just get a job. It was like, ‘Oh, my God, I have a job! I can call myself a working actor.’ But then, the older you get, you have to be more selective, and that’s tough.”
Leave a Reply