A Life in Parts

The best teacher is experience. Find the educational in every situation.

But the only way to get lucky is to be prepared for luck to find you.

Console the failure, but nurture the hunger.

​It’s okay to be afraid. Being afraid can sometimes mean that you’re actually doing something worthwhile.

At that precise moment I conjured a credo that would guide me for the rest of my life: I will pursue something that I love - and hopefully become good at it, instead of pursuing something that I'm good at - but don't love.

If people don’t enhance your life, you have to get rid of them.

That’s the life. That’s why talent alone doesn’t cut it. If you want to be a successful actor, mental toughness is essential. Lay your whole self-worth on getting the role, on the illusion of validation, before long you’re left angry, resentful, and jealous. You’re doomed.

I knew that, on camera, when you walk into a room in your own home, you must know where the light switch is. You can’t need to look. Or else it’s a lie, which is like giving the audience a pinch of poison. When you tell a story, you have to take liberties. You compress time. You create composite characters. You jump years ahead or flash back. Art is not life. But if your character has a longtime girlfriend and you’re tentative or formal with her, touching her as if she’s someone you just met? Another pinch. The audience might not be consciously aware of these little pinches, but if you keep doling them out, they’re reaching for the remote, or they’re walking out of the theater. They’re sick of the poison. They don’t want any more. They’re done. They might not even realize they’re responding to inauthenticity or sloppiness in storytelling. It’s not the audience’s job to articulate the reasons. It’s their job to feel.

Love art in yourself, not yourself in art.

In real life, as it is in fiction, character is both formed and revealed when we are tested. When we are forced to make decisions under pressure, that test can either make us stronger or it can highlight our weaknesses and crack us into pieces.

The greatest thing about youth is that you're not yet battle-weary, so you'll try anything.

I learned that you could so fully inhabit a character that you could fool others, move others. With talent and commitment, you could seduce or terrify. You could make someone feel utter hate or desolation or compassion or even love.

Character is both formed and revealed when we are tested, when we are forced to make decisions under pressure. That test can either make us stronger or it can highlight our weaknesses and crack us into pieces.

The great acting guru Constantin Stanislavski said, “Love art in yourself, not yourself in art.” I think of that often. I try to live by that. Work, hone your craft, enjoy your successes in whatever doses they may come. But do not fall in love with the poster, the image of you in a movie, winning an Oscar, the perks, the limo, being rich and famous. If that is what you’re falling in love with, you’re doomed to fail.

Our marriage has been such a foundation for me. Whenever young actors ask me for advice, I always tell them: get your house in order. Your relationships, your health, your personal life: that’s your foundation. If your home life is sane, it allows you to go insane in your work.

Luck also played a part. Any successful actor or writer or artist will tell you that luck is a crucial factor. But the only way to get lucky is to be prepared for luck to find you. Writers write. Actors act. If you’re not constantly applying your talents to your craft, no one is going to stop you on the street and say, “Hey, come write this TV show!” Or, “I want you to star in my movie.

That’s a nice quality in a person: making someone else feel valued—even if that someone is currently on the bottom rung. I made a mental note.

I occasionally wonder if some of the couples I married are still together and it suddenly dawns on them: "Holy shit! Honey, I think Walter White married us!

Because we had known the good times, I think my brother and I felt the loss more acutely. My father's waning presence, his chronic absence, his disappearance. Now he was just a memory.

But I’m not that kind of actor. I have a finite time on earth. I’m not interested in coasting through it. I want to be invested. An invested actor asks questions that may punch holes in the story or highlight contradictions in a character the writers may not have considered. Asking those questions might mean we have to rethink a beat in the script or redo the blocking. It might mean more work. And that might upset people momentarily. But in the end I’d rather do more work and get it right and give the finished product a richness and resonance that will last.

I’ll shave my head, I’ll be naked, it doesn’t matter. It’s far more important for me to be honest in the character I’m playing than to preen.

Building a character is like building a house. Without a solid foundation, a base, you’re screwed. You’re going to collapse. An actor needs a core quality or essence for a character. Everything rises from there.

I was going to give something. I wasn’t there to get a job. I was there to do a job. Simple as that. I was there to give a performance. If I attached to the outcome, I was setting myself up to expect, and thus to fail. My job was to focus on character. My job was to be interesting. My job was to be compelling. Take some chances. Serve the text. Enjoy the process. And this wasn’t some semantic sleight of hand, it wasn’t some subtle form of barter or gamesmanship. There was to be no predicting or manipulating, no thinking of the outcome. Outcome was irrelevant. I couldn’t afford any longer to approach my work as a means to an end.

And a shift in perspective can change a life. Hope can create possibility. Options are always available to us if we stand back and look at things differently.

Some actors come into work and wait to be told what to do. I think of my costar in Barefoot in the Park who needed to be told that she should express affection toward the man with whom she is madly in love. I suppose those actors can do well. But I’m not that kind of actor. I have a finite time on earth. I’m not interested in coasting through it. I want to be invested. An invested actor asks questions that may punch holes in the story or highlight contradictions in a character the writers may not have considered. Asking those questions might mean we have to rethink a beat in the script or redo the blocking. It might mean more work. And that might upset people momentarily. But in the end I’d rather do more work and get it right and give the finished product a richness and resonance that will last.

CRANSTON! When the foreman yelled, I acknowledged I heard him. I nodded, but I didn’t let him in. I just kept repeating a few lines from my inner script. I kept saying to myself: One day I will be able to call myself an actor. Not a part-time actor, but a real actor. One day. One day. One day. I would fantasize: there’s me driving onto a studio lot; there’s me breaking down the beats of a scene on stage. I was cold and I was getting yelled at, and the energy of many of the guys was a dark energy. Most of those guys hated their jobs, and probably hated their lives. It would be so easy to be sucked into that despair. But I didn’t allow that to come inside. It wasn’t welcome. I wasn’t going to let them clutter my brain. I had something real to hold on to.

I learned that a 211 was a robbery and a 459 was a murder. Code 1 was get there when you can. Code 2 meant get there quickly. (Lights.) Code 3 was get there immediately. (Lights and siren.) Code 7 was grabbing a bite to eat. A 10–100 meant you were on a bathroom break. (A bit of police argot the film business borrowed; it’s part of the lexicon on set.)