I've worked with multiple directors throughout the 'Saw' series with a lot of conversations as they bring their particular installment to the screen. If I've been able to do anything throughout the course of these films, it's been to help shape dialogue and to try to make things as delicate and as intelligent as I can.
Tobin BellIn 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 BellI learned that I could not do enough work; it's always incomplete. When you ask a question, the answer will raise four more questions, and those four will become eight.
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 BellAn actor puts himself in the hands of a director. And the director's first responsibility, obviously, is to tell the story, but the smallest thing that's not true reads on the screen. So if a director sees that an actor is not believable, he needs to help him become believable.
Tobin BellIm an actor. The fact that Im involved in Jigsaw, I dont approach Jigsaw any differently than I approached The Nordic in The Firm or FBI Agent Stokes in Mississippi Burning. Its the same deal. Its just that the effect is sometimes different. So I say, people ask me, How does it feel to be a horror icon? Im thrilled. Its great.
Tobin Bell