I Think My Thing Is That I

I’ve Never Agreed With The Conventional Wisdom That ‘actors Are Great Liars.’ If More People Understood The Acting Process, The Goals Of Good Actors, The Conventional Wisdom Would Be ‘actors Are Terrible Liars,’ Because Only Bad Actors Lie On The Job. The Good Ones Hate Fakery And Avoid Manufactured Emotion At All Costs. Any Script Is Enough Of A Lie Anyway. (what Experience Does Any Actor Have With Flying A Spacecraft? Killing Someone?) What’s Called For, What Actors Are Hired For, Is To Bring Reality To The Arbitrary.

Anyone Who's Lived Their Life To The Fullest Extent Has A Scandal Buried Somewhere.

We [me,maggie Smith And Natasha Richardson ] Rehearsed [suddenly, Last Summer] Like A Play For A Month, And Then We Shot It Over The Course Of... I Believe It Was 10 Days. All Live, Basically. Long, Uninterrupted Takes. And For Me, A Lot Of It Is Me Going Head To Head With Maggie Smith. And Anybody Who's Ever Had That Opportunity Never Forgets It! It's A Real Career Highlight, And It Was Everything I Ever Thought It Would Be, And More.

I Meet So Many People. I Want To Be Genuine And Open With Everyone, Because When I Was Young And Just Starting Out, I Remember I Was Around People Who Were Successful, And I Thought That Some Were Kind Of Cool Or Off-putting To Their Fans. It Always Really Bothered Me. So I Think I May Sometimes Go Too Far Out Of My Way.

We Had Shot Six Episodes Of The West Wing Season When 9/11 Happened. An Extraordinary Thing That Would Never Happen Today Is Aaron Going To The Network And Saying, "i Think We Need To Go Back And Reshoot, I Have Something I Want To Do," And The Network Just Kind Of Let Him Do It.