Friday, December 2, 2016

The Hollywood Reporter's Actor Roundtable

The Hollywood Reporter recently gathered Jeff Bridges, Casey Affleck, Mahershala Ali, Andrew Garfield, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Dev Patel for an actor roundtable interview. Here are some of the highlights:

What do you most like about acting and what do you like the least?
Andrew Garfield: "I just like knowing everything I can. I love the fact that I get to train for a year as a Jesuit priest and then train to be a cop and learn how to make a rocking chair. I want to know everything about everything, and that's not possible and it won't be possible. I'm not ever going to reach it. Neil Young has a recurring dream where he has the perfect melody — and he wakes up every time and can't remember it. And that's what it is for me. There's something to aspire to always, there's somewhere further to go. And the thing that I hate about acting is — well, everything I just said. (Laughter.) The longing is so f—ing painful sometimes."

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: "What I don't like is: I guess since the heyday of Hollywood, there has been a merging of actors and royalty and celebrity. It's tough to complain, because it's a really privileged life I get to lead, [but] the whole celebrity thing is unhealthy and I feel bad perpetuating it."

Jeff Bridges: "I was digging what you were saying, Andrew. It's very paradoxical, man. The very thing you love is the thing that you hate. The first word that came to mind — what do you love or hate, you know? — flop sweat, man. Just the fear, the anxiety. The greater the gift, the greater the fear of not being able to [deliver]. I'm a product of nepotism. My dad, Lloyd Bridges, he loved showbiz so much, he wanted all his kids to get into it. I said, "Oh, but Dad, I want to do music." He said, "Don't be ridiculous. Acting is great." And maybe about 10 or 12 movies in, I had just finished a movie — and usually after a movie I say, "I don't know if I ever want to do that again. My pretend muscle is just exhausted." (Laughter.) And I get a call from my agent, and he's all excited and says, "You've just been offered, by John Frankenheimer, to be in The Iceman Cometh with Fredric March, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan." And I said, "I'm bushed." And about five minutes later, [director] Lamont Johnson calls me up and he says, "You're bushed? You're an ass." And he hung up on me. So I said, "Well, I'm just going to throw myself into this and it'll probably be the final nail in the acting coffin." And it was eight weeks of rehearsal with Fredric March and Robert Ryan. And to see the anxiety that these guys had, and the fear of doing the thing justice, and then to see the joy that they had at the same time — I was caught up in that and realized that this fear and anxiety probably will never go away, and it's your buddy, how you play with it, how you dance with it."

Dev, what did you like and not like about Lion?
Dev Patel: "It sounds really cliched, but I don't get roles like that — ever. To be shot like that, to say such words of gravitas and not be pandering or playing a sort of tech geek, was a transformative journey. It was also something I could relate to: about someone who has suppressed his culture and a part of himself for a while to try and fit in, and then all of a sudden those memories come back. When I first went to India for Slumdog Millionaire [Patel is British of Indian descent], it was a lightbulb moment, you know? And all those cliches I had about the country and the people were dispersed straight away."

You stepped into a role Matt Damon was meant to play in Manchester by the Sea. Did you talk to him about it?
Casey Affleck: "Matt was going to direct that movie and then he decided not to. That happened long before we started the movie. And I can't really talk — I don't know how you guys feel, but talking to other people about a part is not helpful for me. It's such an internal and complicated and still mysterious process. It's almost all inside. And it was hard [emotionally]. Three times a week I'd show up and have to stand over someone who's your dead relative and try to be authentically in that place. It broke me into a place where it became much easier to do all of it."

Read the full interview at The Hollywood Reporter.

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