I think there's a lot of mythos about what's required in acting. The way that actors talk about acting is generally quite punishing, and I think actors want to put forward the idea that they do all of this work because, you know, it's a post-De Niro world, when, largely, in fact, it's almost never true.
Ben MendelsohnThere are two things: 1) what things one does in the world, and 2) what family one has. There's the two really tangible things that can stay.
Ben MendelsohnOne of the things that I found very confronting in my early working life was that people thought I was some sensitive doe-eyed lovelorn boy, because they'd seen me do that a couple of times. What tends to happen is you get a run of similar roles.
Ben MendelsohnI mean, there's a sense wherein you skip a part of childhood, too, when you start working at that age I did; I was out working and out of home at 15, paying my own way in the world.
Ben MendelsohnYou can certainly extend your adolescence. There's people that are very good at extending it indefinitely.
Ben MendelsohnI think there's a lot of mythos about what's required in acting. The way that actors talk about acting is generally quite punishing, and I think actors want to put forward the idea that they do all of this work because, you know, it's a post-De Niro world, when, largely, in fact, it's almost never true.
Ben Mendelsohn