I don't want people thinking they know me instead of the character. Steve McQueen has loads of stories about him - who knows what's true? But it's great for people to fictionalize rather than know the truth.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I don't want to know about the lives of other actors and I don't want people to know too much about me. If we don't know about the private lives of other actors, that leaves us as clean slates when it comes to playing characters. That's the point, they can create these other characters and I can believe them.
For people who know McQueen, there is always an underlying message. It's usually only the intellectual ones who understand what's going on in what I do.
But I've always felt that the less you know about an actor's personal life, the more you can get involved in the story in which he's playing a character. And I don't like to see movies where you know about everything that happens behind the scenes. I can't engage in the story if I know what's going on in the actor's head.
Steve McQueen is my style hero. He's just cool, isn't he?
All of my characters are a little bit based on people I know in real life. You know when you do that you have to change the character a little bit in case your friend or your relative reads the book, because you don't want them to know you wrote about them... They might get mad.
My characters are fictional. I get ideas from real people, sometimes, but my characters always exist only in my head.
If I'm doing my job as an actor, the audience knows everything I know about the character.
I think that truth is stranger than fiction, and it's nice to know the people you're making a movie about.
My character in 'Shame' is an outrageous person. Loud and uncompromising and I begged Steve McQueen to give me the job.
Even though writing articles relies completely on truth, you still must tell an interesting story. You can't worry about people knowing who you are and whether or not they want to read your stories.