In the the late seventies and early eighties, I played background roles in thirty movies... Woody Allen movies, Scorsese films, you name it. Whatever was being shot in New York, I was doing stand-in and background work because I wanted to be close to the camera; I wanted to see what was going on.
Tobin BellHorror fans are very passionate people, and they are very much into the 'Saw' thing. So they watch sometimes as carefully as the writers and producers do, in terms of the way the story plays out.
Tobin BellIf you're an impressionistic painter and you want to paint expressionism, you've got to change. You've got to figure out a way to do it and do it. If you've been playing jazz all your life and you want to start to play rock n' roll, blues, then do it.
Tobin BellNo matter what kind of significance leads you do, you learn a lot from doing schlock. The setup's the same, only you have to work twice as hard to make it the best as you can make it. And a lot of acting is not about acting but technology. Are you standing in your light? Are you out of your light? And if the sound guy's near you, please don't put the coffee cup down at that moment, because you're covering your lines. All of that stuff's going on in your head, so you learn a lot by doing whatever. In my view, never worry that something's not prime - A, number - one stuff.
Tobin BellWhat's interesting is that you can have a set that's very calm, very smooth, very cooperative... and end up with a terrible movie. And you can have a set that's really horrible as far as relationships and volatility, and come up with a great movie. Sometimes that energy gets infused into what ends up on film - it's interesting in that way.
Tobin BellI try to think of acting in terms of thinking and doing. People think of it as, "Oh, let's get inside this guy." They think that acting is being, or feeling, or emoting. It's as much doing. One of the first things you do as an acting student is ask, "Can you say words and do a task at the same time, like sweep a floor?" You get to watch the human condition, and there's always a "doing" aspect of it. This couple, they're carrying backpacks, where are they going? Students? Or are they carrying instruments? It stimulates the imagination. So acting is doing ... and I forget how we got off on that.
Tobin Bell