Matt Bomer
My personal life is a source of incredible happiness for me, but it's personal, and it's not for me to hock or shop around to the highest bidder.
I think every guy and girl would love to get to play Superman at some point in their life.
I'm from a very athletic family, and I thoroughly enjoyed sports as a kid, but acting was a way of expressing myself and having fun. It was something I found on my own.
For some reason, they always gave me a fat suit in high-school productions. If there was a character who needed to be robust, they gave me a fat suit, and I put on a silly voice.
I really just try to focus on my job, which is to be an actor, and outside that, the cards fall where they may, and on not getting caught up in how people react to certain things. That's a death trap creatively.
There's always a need for new superheroes. As society changes, the types of superheroes will probably change as well.
There's a level of love that really dissolves a lot of egotism and self-absorption.
I was cold-calling agents when I was, like, 9 years old, and I was like, 'Mom, I need this thing called a headshot.'
I came from a long line of football players.
I put on muscle really quick.
I used to go to sports camp every summer. I'd make a lot of new friends, and it was all athletic. It was basically a place for parents to send their kids to run out all their summer energy for two weeks.
My parents knew if they kept me active, I'd stay out of trouble.
I sort of take cues from my grandparents.
When I was 8 years old, I asked my parents to get me head shots, and they were like, 'What are you talking about? Go outside and play!' I'm so glad they did.
I had a normal childhood where I was able to cultivate my own creativity, and I don't think I would have been ready for this crazy business at 8 years old.
I love India. I've always been drawn to it, and I hope that I get to visit the country soon.
Working on TV can be quite insular.
I see what kids in the business have to watch. It's tough to do.
You have to remember you're an artist and get hungry.
I'm blessed to have a family, so it's not like I'm twiddling my thumbs. When I'm not working, that's where all my attention comes.
When I was 27, I felt old. I didn't feel healthy. I just wasn't taking care of my body, and I had a body that wanted me to take care of it.
In the end, someone is depending on me to show up on their set looking a specific way, whether that's 40 pounds overweight or 40 pounds underweight - or looking like a stripper.
I think anytime you can show different colors and portray something that you haven't had a chance to do is always really refreshing as an actor.
One of the things about the con artist lifestyle is that all the romance is sort of sloppy and fast and loose.
Making a great television show is hard enough. To also tackle F. Scott - whoa.
I tend toward more adult fare, and I would love to do a voice in an animated film or something the boys could go see, but at a certain point, I made peace with myself about it.
I was always that fringe guy anyway, the guy who played football and then did the musicals.
Our high school offered a comprehensive drama department where I was doing 'Angels in America' at 14.
I was raised in a conservative Christian household. We weren't even allowed to watch 'secular' television, anything that was deemed not proper for Christians.
One of the ways I learned how to act, really, is by having secrets and having to function as a kid in a public school in suburban Bible Belt Texas.
I never really endeavored to hide anything. But there were times I chose not to relegate my history to the back page of a magazine, which to me is sort of akin to putting your biography on a bathroom wall.
Oh, I think Janie Bryant is a genius. I mean, I think she changed menswear almost single-handedly with what she did on 'Mad Men.'
I grew up on theater, and honestly, I'm trying to figure out a way with a family and kids and living in Los Angeles to get back to the stage because it is my first love.
I think people in theater are pretty open-minded and objective about the talent and what they can bring to the story they want to tell.
I did a one-off episode of 'The New Normal' for Ryan Murphy, and that was the first time I played a gay role.
I try to just live my life and do my work, and the rest will just fall into place, as it may. As it will.
I learned a lot about self-reinvention. How you can be born Milton Sternberg in the Bronx and then become Monroe Stahr in Hollywood.
As a gay man in Hollywood, I certainly understand what it means to be in it but not of it, to be marginalized at times and kept out of certain clubs.
You're really lucky as an artist if you get a role that changes you as a person.
My favorite thing about working with Lady Gaga is really just the sheer level of creativity she brings to the table. And she's really one of the most intelligent people I've ever known. Her intelligence is equaled by her heart.
I remember I was really, really proud the first moment I got my insurance and also just going in to get my SAG card and filling out the form and realizing I was a member of all the unions I could be a part of as an actor. It was a really fulfilling experience for me.
I like 'Citizen Kane,' I like 'The Godfather,' all the ones that everyone should see, whether you're an actor or not.
I love 'Jaws,' and I think Robert Shaw's performance in 'Jaws' is one of the best screen performances of all time. I am a massive Robert Shaw fan. I think he's a brilliant, brilliant talent and we lost him way before his time.
I'd like to really make the Montgomery Clift biopic happen.
I'd like to get a chance to wear two different hats in the business. I also think it would be really great to do an adaptation of a great novel.
I love that Amazon has this incredibly unique, diplomatic process where people's voices are heard, and we're using this great interconnectedness we have, via the Internet, to weigh in and to have a say in what we want to see and what we don't.
For me, I look at a pilot and go, 'I see the landscape. I see the characters. I see the direction and the potential of the story.' And I also go, 'That didn't work. I could change that. Maybe that works. I don't know. We'll see.' For me, I look at it, as an actor, as what can I improve upon?
When you really put your heart and soul into something, the temptation is to try to be in control of circumstances, however you can, and looking and seeing how people are responding. But I realized, early on, that that was just not going to be a healthy thing for me to do.
You're not going to do that. If you gave your best to what you were given, at the time, it's going to play out how it's going to play out.