I was sent the script for 'Silver Linings' when I was doing a play in D.C. at The Kennedy Center with Cate Blanchett and I was sent the script and asked if I was interested, and I said 'Oh, boy am I!'
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Often in television, you read a script and you're amazed that you get the scene given to you.
They sent me the script, asking me to play the part of a general. I have never played the part of an authority figure. I've never thought of myself that way. I was uncomfortable with it, but I worked at it and knew I had a guttural voice for a general.
Ralph Fiennes was a pivotal influence on me. He asked me, 'So what is it you want to do?' I very shyly, timidly admitted that I wanted to be an actor. He sighed, and he said, 'Lupita, only be an actor if you feel there is nothing else in the world you want to do - only do it if you feel you cannot live without acting.'
I'm just a hired actor who was hired for a particular job, but I think one of the joys of reading the script was the way that the personal and the global are woven together.
My scripts are possibly too talkative. Sometimes I watch a scene I've written, and occasionally I think, 'Oh, for God's sake, shut up.'
Whenever I read a script, I start recasting the role that I might play. I'm like, 'God, this should be played by Domhnall Gleeson, not me.'
When I write a play, and we read it for the first time, the great fear is that everybody is going to say, 'You're a bum and you can't write. This stinks.' and throw the script in the garbage. The great hope is that they're all going to lift me up on their shoulders and carry me to the streets, singing, 'He's a genius, he's a genius!'
I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they hired another writer and that script was forgotten.
When an actor asks you to read his script, your heart sinks. The number of scripts I've been given by actors that are so unbelievably terrible!
I got a script sent to me at this office and I got a call from a woman - Universal's doing a snowboarding movie. I'm not in it yet, but I'm supposed to meet with the director in New York soon. I'm waiting to hear back from them.