So I was always passionate about it and felt that it was sort of the golden thread inside me in terms of what I was supposed to do in terms of work but I think I have relaxed a lot in terms of the actual experience and actually enjoy it more and enjoy the people more.
Sure, I suffered a lot. But it's not like the end of the world and it's not who I am. I lead quite a pleasant life and I'm able to divorce a perceived reality from my actual experience of life.
American government did not originate in any abstract theories about liberty and equality, but in the actual experience gained by generation after generation of English colonists in managing their own political affairs. The Revolution did not make a breach in the continuity of their institutional life.
I was never afraid of failure after that because, I think, coming that close to death you get kissed. With the years, the actual experience of course fades, but the flavor of it doesn't. I just had a real sense of what choice do I have but to live fully?
When you're dealing with a problem as complex as autism, you have to look at it from many different points of view and assemble evidence from many different vantage points. Biological evidence in humans and in animals, toxicologic evidence, how does the body deal with toxins, and evidence looking at the actual experience in populations.
When people talk about how the Internet has changed the way we travel, they typically lament the way our compulsion to document removes us, somehow, from the actual experience.
Cancer doesn't just happen to me; it happens to my best friend; it happens to everyone who means something in my life... The truth is, it does take a village to take care of somebody who's sick, and so we just, at all times, tried to be authentic to the actual experience we had.
The first documentary I saw that tried to show the actual experience of being a soldier in combat was 'The Anderson Platoon,' by French director Pierre Schoendoerffer, which won the Oscar for best documentary in 1967.
I feel more confident and like I have more to say. I feel like I'm working more than ever, not just from fantasy, but actual experience. I'm an adult now - I actually have experience.
I studied method acting for four years and I'm a big believer in the idea that it's not about the actual experience itself. You don't have to go through exactly what this character has gone through.
