Neil Patrick Harris
Thankfully I've been quite lucky in my career, but it's always good to re-evaluate things and think about what else you want to do.Collection: Thinking
I think, in life, being nervous about something that's forthcoming is very helpful, whether it's an awards show or a family gathering or a job interview. If you're too calm and confident, then I think you aren't executing to the best of your ability. So I try not to let nerves get the best of me, but I welcome them because it tends to fuel me to try harder.Collection: Jobs
I don't want to have to inadvertently find a gift and go like, "What the hell is? Oh no, that's for me." And then have to pretend like I'm surprised later. If I know where they're hidden, I will not look. I love presents and I hate faking surprises.Collection: Hate
It PASSED! Marriage equality in NY!! Yes!! Progress!! Thank you everyone who worked so hard on this!! A historic night!Collection: Night
American Sniper focuses on a soldier with 160 kills, or as Harvey Weinstein calls it, a slow morning.Collection: Morning
Our culture's adjustment to the epistemology of television is by now all but complete; we have so thoroughly accepted its definitions of truth, knowledge and reality that irrelevance seems to us to be filled with import, and incoherence seems eminently sane. And if some of our institutions seem not to fit the template of the times, why it is they and not the template, that seem to us disordered and strange.Collection: Reality
Theater for me is about enduring human truth. Special effects can be part of that, but when they obscure what is the reason we come to theater - to see reflections of our confounded humanity - the theater has lost its way.Collection: Reflection
I love the American musical for the simplicity of emotion that gets expressed.Collection: Simplicity
Benedict Cumberbatch is not only the best name in show business, it's also the response you get when you ask John Travolta to pronounce Ben Affleck.Collection: Names
I’m a nerdy, geeky fan of Labyrinth and Dark Crystal.Collection: Dark
I grew up being educated by Sesame Street and gained a sense of humor from The Muppet Show. I'd give my right foot to be able to do a scene or two with the Muppets.Collection: Two
I'm having a ball. I just walk in, make some funnies and walk out, no pressure.Collection: Balls
Babies just change everything. You have to become super-selfless and super-tired and super-amenable to change. They just change all the time.Collection: Baby
I'm wildly impressed with the diversity of gay roles.Collection: Gay
As actors you don't want to have one label. You'd rather have seven.Collection: Labels
When you have twin four-year-olds, you are able to dance like a fool, often. And I do.Collection: Years
I love physical stuff. I love circusy, weird, breathing fire and bucket-listy things.Collection: Breathing
I love technology. I buy all of the stuff when they come out first.Collection: Technology
I've been very fortunate to go from interesting chapter to interesting chapter. I've always enjoyed the process and always enjoyed working more really than the end result of what it achieves. I'm more interested in doing the work.Collection: Interesting
Before babies, I worked very hard to make sure I understood my surroundings and figured out where I fit in the world, whether it was at work or whether it was in a social situation. And with kids, you just can't. The rule is you can't really do that because they dictate and they change so much so you just have to go with the flow more and be present and not have big expectations and be amused all the time.Collection: Baby
Babies laughing is like opium.Collection: Baby
This next presenter is so lovely you could eat her up with a spoonCollection: Lovely
I pride myself in being able to straddle demographics and if that was said as Barney Stinson it would mean a little different thing.Collection: Mean
I don't like to be disparaging about my past roles. That's the only taboo that I don't like to cross.Collection: Past
The discipline of live theater - doing the same perfect thing night after night, eight times a week - never ceases to amaze meCollection: Night
I have actual strong ideas. You just have to wait for the right timing. Timing is pretty crucial here. I can't dedicate a lot of energy and efforts trying to, say, create a show that I want to produce while I'm currently on another show.Collection: Strong
I'm very interested in starting to produce, and direct, and have an umbrella over an entire project in the future. I'd like to have control over what the characters do. I think as an actor, you get a little too caught up in the moment-to-moment, beat-to-beat stuff to have perspective.Collection: Character
For film, I audition just like everyone else, because it's a different set of casting directors.Collection: Directors
Oh sure, now you like him [after the audience applaud David Oyelowo].Collection: Oscars
[Before introducing the nominees for best animated film] If you're at the awards party with the guys who made the Lego Movie, now would be a good time to distract them.Collection: Party
On MTV, the dialogue can be a little darker, more interesting and edgy... the animation is just phenomenal. It's a CGI program that's doing all the animation.Collection: Mtv
I still audition a lot - it depends on the medium. For film, I audition just like everyone else, because it's a different set of casting directors. For television and theatre - well, for theater, there's some auditioning that has to happen, just for them to know that you can sing it, and how you'd take on the part. But for TV, things are getting a little better with, "Would you like to be a part of this?" But that's really for one - night things. It sounds like a pompous answer, if I say people are calling me to ask me to do things.Collection: Night
Coming at the acting business as a technician, I really enjoy the process of working. I really enjoy being in a rehearsal room, starting a theatre piece for the first time. I really enjoy shooting in front of the crew, and I really love going on location. I think all that is just so exciting. So I've never really been drawn into the fame of being an actor, which in L.A., is part and parcel of the deal. I think for a lot of people, especially kids, it's hard to not get wrapped up in the world of the perks that the job brings.Collection: Kids
I find myself acting for an editor more, because there's a quick turnaround with television, so you want to try and seem like you're as frenetic as possible, while replicating your movement so you're giving the editor more opportunity to cut within the different takes. If you're so crazy that you're sitting in one take and standing in another, the editor can only choose one take or the other. But if you can wrangle yourself into the same spot over and over, then you give them more choices for you.Collection: Crazy
I'd love to be some sort of villain in a big-budget action movie. Or a superhero franchise. That'd be rad.Collection: Superhero
I did enjoy singing the song, called "The Count", which is Count Olaf's big song that he sings to the kids when they first arrive with his henchpeople. He wrote it himself, and he thinks he's really, really talented, and it's a terrible song. So we had to learn intentionally bad choreography... We did these almost Lady Gaga-ish kind of movements, which were just awful, but that made me laughCollection: Song
That movie [A Series of Unfortunate Events] told four books in two hours, and we have two hours per book. So we have eight hours to tell four books, and if people watch we'll get to tell more of them. There's only thirteen books, so there's only going to be two more seasons, but that allows for a lot of time to be in character and to maintain character.Collection: Book
I like [Count] Olaf's wardrobe, because the whole thing seems like it should be a period piece in many ways, and yet the date is non-specific. So I would wear cloaks and jackets, but also turtlenecks. I was a little beatnik, and kind of hipster in that way.Collection: Hipster
The hardest part of playing the villain was the prosthetics, because I couldn't really move my face as much as I wanted to, and yet I had to move my face a lot. If I moved my face in certain ways the prosthetics would come apart, so I could do a lot of eyebrow acting, but I couldn't do a lot of nose lifting, or the corners of the nose would pop out.Collection: Moving
Playing a villain was fun, only because you get to do all the things you wouldn't normally do in your real life.Collection: Fun
The makeup [for Count Olaf] took about two and a half hours every morning. The meditation was another hour and a half. I would eat a big breakfast - that was probably 45 minutes. And then it was lunch.Collection: Morning
I sort of pride myself in my dissatisfaction with my work. I've always been concerned with buying the hype, and having that make your performances suffer.Collection: Pride
I don't feel ignored. But I'd rather engage readers than dictate my opinion to them. Opinion is so...subjective!Collection: Opinion
You have to be careful when you're doing an interview.Collection: Interviews
I feel like with actors wanting to direct, you really only have a shot or two. You can't just make a bunch of little independent movies, and then finally one gets noticed. You have to make a really good one right away.Collection: Independent
If I'm doing some weird tick with my mouth, or not standing still or something, I'll be the first person to notice it, and then want to change that. I think it's important just to maintain trajectory, to not just use your same tricks over and over.Collection: Thinking
I don't care about my "impact" - I only care about the theater as an art form and criticism as an act of writing.Collection: Art
I think flirting is great fun. It doesn’t mean that anything’s going to come of it but it’s fun to be told that you’re hot and that your tits look great. You all get your pens out.Collection: Fun
I enjoy darker sardonic wit more than knock-knock jokes. I spent the first healthy chunk of my career playing all-American, pleasant, average, nice people, so it’s fun to have some complications there.Collection: Fun