What advice about acting would you give your younger self?
CAINE No matter how bad it gets, you’re going to get there. Nine years in little theater, and I thought I was never going to make it to the West End. And then an American director called Cy Endfield cast me as an officer in Zulu, which was the start of my movie career. No English director, even if he was a left-wing communist, would have cast me as an officer.
JACKSON I was a kid sitting in the movie theater watching that movie, going, “That dude, he’s f—in’ mean! There’s only eight of those dudes [soldiers], and there’s like 8 million Zulus out there, and they won the fight.” I would tell myself it’s not a normal job. I thought this was like every other job — you start in the mailroom and then you get higher and higher. So I thought, “OK, I’m doing theater, and eventually I’ll get a commercial, and then I’ll become a movie star.” I thought that was the progression. I had no clue. And after 25 years, I finally figured out that it works a whole ’nother way. But I fell in love with the theater, which was the really wonderful thing. My love for audiences, and performing in front of people live, gave me a deal of satisfaction that I don’t get when I do this movie. That’s a very different thing.
RUFFALO I started in the tiny 30-seat theaters here in Los Angeles, of all places.
CAINE In those little dressing rooms, when you’re starting, there’s no toilet, and when you get nervous, you want to pee. So the first thing you learn to do as an actor is learn to pee in the sink. (Laughter.)
DEL TORO That’s where he comes from.
SMITH It was tough for me ’cause I have to poop before. … (Laughter.) It’s probably an American/British thing. We learn to poop in the sink.
CAINE The first time I went onstage, there was a bucket there. I said, “What’s that bucket for?” They said, “Well, in case you want to throw up.” And a couple of times, I did. I threw up in the bucket, I was so nervous.
Do you still get nervous?
CAINE Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
EDGERTON I don’t get nervous on a movie set so much, unless I’m putting pressure on myself for what’s needed on that day. But theater, I definitely get nervous. Those first few performances, I get terrified. That five or 10 minutes before stepping out onstage, I actually think I’m going to have a little bit of a heart attack.
JACKSON I get frustrated with the rehearsal process. I want to see how people are going to react to this. But I’ve never had stage fright.
SMITH Never done theater. What we did on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was [before] a live audience on Fridays. So it had that effect.
Do you get nervous or afraid?
SMITH I live in complete terror. (Laughter.) Everything for me about this business and about what I’ve been trying to build and what I’ve been trying to do with my life keeps me in terror. I am deeply motivated by fear. With a movie, it’s like you never know; you can love it, you can have done what you think is the best work you’ve ever done, and you put it out on that Friday, and everybody hates it — and you’ve taken a year. And they don’t just dislike it, you know? They want to be really creative with how they let you know they hate it.
What’s your biggest disappointment?
SMITH There’s been disappointments, but every time I came back with a newer, fresher attitude. But the first time where it didn’t work the way that I wanted was Wild Wild West. I was coming off of Men in Black, and everything was like, “Oh, we can’t lose,” you know? I was like, “Oh! Tragedy!”
JACKSON It’s ’cause you didn’t use Kool Moe Dee [whom Smith sampled for his 1999 song “Wild Wild West”]. (Laughter.)
Read the full Roundtable at The Hollywood Reporter.
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