You always take a little bit back with you at the end of the day. I always put a little bit of myself into the characters, too. You find parallels, points of connection, things like that. But I'm not an actor who gets so incredibly haunted by my characters that I can't come back.
I'm sure some of the characters in 'X-Men' had a lot of physically demanding stuff to do, but my character's pretty much stand-and-deliver, stand there and throw fire at people. There's no acrobatics or anything.
That's just part of being in 'X-Men.' There's, like, 20 main characters, and 15 of them are household names, so obviously you're happy for anything you can get.
If the characters on 'The West Wing' were watching a TV show wherein a character like Trump was leading in the polls, they wouldn't find it believable.
I do not speak through my characters; it's not a ventriloquist act.
Matt Weiner is very perceptive; there's something about the rhythms and the way people speak that is very authentic to the actor. But there are qualities that are dissimilar. The characters on 'Mad Men' are struggling with pretty profound unhappiness, but I can tell you this is a happy bunch.
People lament that there's no roles being written for South Asian or Muslim characters. But their parents don't want their children to go into the entertainment field. You don't get it both ways.
I've been watching 'The Cosby Show' and 'Roseanne' a lot right now, and those work so well because they're not, like, jokey comedies; they are coming from real characters. We want our show to be like that. A family show.
Playing different characters in different films helps keep you excited about what you do. It always seems like a whole new adventure.
I'm about my characters.
