Scoot McNairy
I want my career to grow gradually. There's still so much for me to learn. I'm just trying to take these opportunities to get better at what I'm doing.
I've been asked, 'What was your big break?' I don't feel like I've had a big break. It's been a slow, slow break.
I've been doing independent films for 10 years, but one out of five didn't see the light of day.
To have three movies coming out at the same time - I probably will never have that again in my life.
I love L.A. It was an awesome place to spend my 20s, full of creative people, but I never wanted to stay there. It wasn't necessarily Texas that I wanted to move to; I just knew I wanted to live in the country somewhere. My wife and I found this place in Texas that we really liked, so we packed up our stuff and moved.
I really love Andrew Dominik's movies. When you work with someone whose movies you really love and who you have a lot of admiration for, you turn into putty in their hands.
I just want to keep laying down really great, strong characters, and the more I go unrecognized, the better job I feel I'm doing.
In no way do I want to draw attention to myself.
I did theater as a kid, more of an after-school program. But every night I would put on a movie and fall asleep to it.
'Stand By Me' was really great for me and my buddies; we'd all watch that together because that was us - we were down in the creek and hanging out every day and going on little adventures. I had about sixteen friends who are all about the same age as me and lived in a three-block radius. We spent our entire childhood down in that creek.
I can watch anybody all day long if they're really doing what they're doing. I have a fascination with human behavior, watching people talk, when they pick at their face or how they hold their hand or if they're listening to you, if they're not listening to you.Collection: Hands
Not all pictures but some pictures you're like, "Wow, I wish I could be there" or you feel like you are there. I don't know what it is about cinematography.Collection: Wish
Stand By Me' was really great for me and my buddies; we'd all watch that together because that was us - we were down in the creek and hanging out every day and going on little adventures. I had about sixteen friends who are all about the same age as me and lived in a three-block radius. We spent our entire childhood down in that creek.Collection: Block
To book commercials, you do something to get to a callback, and once you get to the callback, you've got three minutes to get the people to want to hang out with you for a day.Collection: Book
I think acting has made me very in tune with human behavior and myself as well.Collection: Thinking
My experience with working with really great actors is you don't have to act. All you have to do is listen. And, that's sort of a virtue and a wonderful thing to be able to experience. It's so much less work.Collection: Wonderful
I just like good stories. I like really interesting scripts, I love really great filmmakers. And I'm open to all genres and all stories. But, there's certain ones that attract me, and I don't really sort of look at what I think is going to be successful, I look at more so, you know, is this what I want to do regardless of what everybody else thinks?Collection: Successful
It's weird that you have to work really, really hard just to be real or normal. Everybody's got their different techniques, but what makes a really good actor is somebody who's really believable.Collection: Real
I make different choices in regards to the stories I want to be a part of. In my mind, it's a totally different medium. Commercials are little skits, and movies are stories; I became a little more picky in my choices for stories that I wanted to be involved in.Collection: Choices
I did not have a computer until recently. I'm not really a computer person; I'm really hands-on. I can't make it work if it's all behind the black curtain. It doesn't interest me. I want to see what's actually happening back there.Collection: Hands
When you hire somebody, you shouldn't have to tell them [a lot of what] to do; you hire them because you like their work and all you've got to do is tweak them a little bit.Collection: Littles
I guess through my learning disability, through dyslexia, I've always been a visual learner - I take in everything through my eyes.Collection: Eye
I had a love for photography, which of course rolled into cinematography.Collection: Photography