I can't watch most of my work. Once I come on screen, all I can think of is 'What am I doing with my hands?' or 'Why did I lean that way?' or 'What's that look on my face?' It's too difficult to not focus on evaluating my acting.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I have a really difficult time watching myself on film. I literally cower in my seat and cover my face.
When you're a working actor and you're happy to be one, you can't focus all your energy on acting because you will go crazy. You have to focus as much energy as you can away from yourself.
What is a struggle is that acting isn't a place where you go to work and you do that thing. There aren't set boundaries, like an office, where you go and work. For me, the work is always on my mind.
You can see areas where maybe you got a bit lazy, perhaps, or you see when you were really on form. I think an actor is very like a sportsman in that respect. You have periods where you're in terrific form. Everything you touch seems to work and come right. And other times, when you're working really hard, it's okay, but it isn't scintillating.
I wouldn't say I'm a Method actor, but I do try to focus very deeply on what character I'm playing, and everything else goes out the window. I forget about everything. I try to get everything else out of my head.
I've got to see my movie to see how I'm acting, see what little things I can learn about my craft.
It is hard sometimes to see how other actors are working when you are working with them.
In the past, I had a knee-jerk approach to work, and it showed on screen. I was doing movies for the wrong reasons - trying to juggle dates, do too many guest appearances, take up projects under pressure or for emotional reasons.
I spend a lot of my time trying to draw the attention of actors to the minute and subtle details of human behavior, which was the sort of thing I was looking at when I was a neurologist.
I haven't really focused so much on getting acting work.