I take some pains to learn the material beforehand. I have a bunch of tricks I use to try and hit the ground running. I write everything out. I take the text and I very methodically go through, and that tends to put it into my head a little bit more solidly than if I just glanced at it and hoped for the best.
On '24,' it says on the front page of your script: 'This script is for the production staff and cast. Please don't show it to anybody else.'
I've worked on all sorts of things, like the sci-fi stuff for Vin Diesel, where the script is numbered and is in unphotocopy-able colours and your name is stamped into every page. And it doesn't really help because it creates a false sense of specialness about the thing.
I'm pragmatic. If this is going to make sense, get me a job, and in the end let me put my kids through school. I'll play killers. But my kids always ask me, 'Do you die in this one, too, Daddy?'
Charm is an intangible. Chutzpah, charm, charisma, that kind of thing, you can't buy it. You either have it or you don't.
I do dead Canadians. If he's dead and he's Canadian and he's famous, I'll be playing him at some point.
I've played all kinds of historical characters, but they are stuck in movies that aren't their movies.
