Chris Messina
My mom was a dance teacher, so she put me in dance school when I was a kid. I did everything. I used to take ballet.Collection: Teacher
Yeah, I think everybody has the crises of questioning themselves at some point or other in their lives. Is this where I should live? The job I should have? The girl I should be dating? Is this the friend I should have?Collection: Dating
I'm from Long Island. Strong Island.
Doing something like 'Damages,' I played a character with post-traumatic stress. I was playing with sleep deprivation. I was not sleeping; I stayed up for three days at a time, drinking Red Bull. I would get shaky and tired and hyper.
What's monotonous about being an actor and often makes me want to throw in the towel or drive a car off a bridge is the auditioning - the waiting around.
I think as an actor, you're constantly putting yourself out there, and a lot of times failing - and failing in front of a bunch of people - and sometimes you have a good moment and something clicks.
How precise you need to be when you're in a comedy, and the honesty you need and to have those two things meet up and have the execution just right, I always found very difficult.
Probably the best part about being an actor is that you get to be a traveling wanderer.
I've spent so much of my youth trying to change people or change girls and then having it done to me and people wanting me to change.
I love 'Boardwalk Empire.' I really love that world. I love that style. I love all the actors on it.
I'm not a cook. I don't think I ever will be.
I like to eat.
I'm from another time period. E-mailing sometimes, for me, is difficult.
Well, it's always strange to kiss someone with 10, 20, 40 people around.
I would love to close my eyes and see myself with my girlfriend when we're 99 years old and I have a pipe and she's knitting a sweater, and I hope that's the way it goes. I think it's a challenge every day.
I think Aaron Sorkin is like Shakespeare. When you go through it, there is a rhythm and clues all over the place of how it should be played.
When you do a play, you do it for a couple months, and it just gets in your bones. You can learn about somebody that way.
I am a big fan of movies from the '70s.
I like funny things, but I don't find myself particularly funny.
If you're playing your character and you're running into all these people who know who you are and treat you in a way that doesn't pertain at all to the character, it takes you out of it more, so when you're alone in a city where people don't know you, you can kind of pretend even more and get into the head space of where you need to be.
It's always flattering when somebody you really respect and like wants you to be involved in their project - let alone writes a part with your voice in mind.
There's been a lot of times that I thought I'd never work again; I was really bummed out.
Ultimately, making movies, if you don't have a big star, it's hard to do. Or if it's not a star director.
I'm lucky to just be a working actor. There are so many great actors out there and I'm just lucky to have gotten work.
As corny as it sounds, I'm often pinching myself going, 'What great opportunities and great parts and great people that I've gotten to work with.'
I don't have much interest in gingerbread houses - except in eating them.
I like romance in films. I like love in films.
I haven't watched a lot of television, but when I was kid, I watched 'All in the Family,' and I liked Archie and Edith a lot.
I don't know if women gravitate toward me, or I gravitate toward them.
Honestly, one of my favorite things about a director is when they understand what an actor brings to their role.
'The Mindy Project' is really best when you're loose, and we improvise a lot, and that's what's best.
When you do a movie, you shoot, and then you go away. A lot of the times you walk about from the movie, you say, 'Oh, I get that scene now... Oh, that whole ending - I wish I could have done another shot.'
When I'm doing a drama, I like to find the comedy; when I'm doing a comedy, I like to find the heart and drama.
The truth is really funny. It's uncomfortable sometimes, it's dramatic sometimes, but it's really funny. Life is funny.
I like talking about acting. I'm comfortable talking about acting.
I was in a movie called 'Before & After' with Meryl Streep. I was edited out of the movie, but no one told me. I think I was 18 or 19 years old. I sat across from her and asked her every question about acting. I completely embarrassed myself.
For the longest time, I was always like a guy that people would think they went to high school with. They'd be like, 'How do I know you?' After, we'd play a guessing game. I'd say, 'I'm an actor,' and they'd go, 'Oh, what have you been in?' I'd list my credits, and they wouldn't really remember me.
A lot of acting, as I grew up wanting to do, is kind of like magic... I'm not comparing myself to him in the least bit, but if you knew what Daniel Day-Lewis was doing every step of the way and what he was eating, I don't think when he popped up as Lincoln we would quite believe it.
I was so bad in school that acting gave me some kind of identity and gave me a home.
When you go to a college for acting, at least the college I went to, it's like everybody just singing and dancing and acting, and they all come together, and everyone's talking about head shots... It just turned me off. I was like, 'What is this? I don't understand this. People are singing in the hallways.'
I did a lot of small black-box theater in New York when I was starting out. I'd get a group of actors together to do workshops and readings. And I ended up directing three or four productions.
That is the fun of being an actor. You play all different kinds of people.
One of the interesting parts of being on a television show is you often don't know the fate of your character until you're reading the script. I always look forward to finding out.
You don't get to rehearse much on TV. You are kind of rehearsing on film. Depending on the way you work, that's either a good thing or a bad thing.
I honestly think comedy is probably the hardest stuff to do.
The main thing about doing a comedy is that you spend most of your days really happy and laughing.
The rain probably dampened the spirits of those that decided not to come. But the people who were here didn't know it was raining because they were having so much fun.Collection: Fun
Nothing is as it seems; everything is as you allow it to beCollection: Seems
Look at what your idea of success would be. The more that you take in external motivators, the more it reduces your ultimate satisfaction because it doesn't come from inside.Collection: Ideas
I mean, in the editing room, you sit there, and you're so happy about a lot of it. You've got these great actors, and the DP's great, and you love it... And then there's so much you're mad about. Cause you've made so many mistakes. So yeah, there're scenarios where you're like, "Ah, I wish I could change this. How do I make this better?" "No matter what I do, the scene's not working, what do I do?"Collection: Mistake