Peter Sarsgaard
Peter Sarsgaard
John Peter Sarsgaardis an American actor. He landed his first feature role in the movie Dead Man Walking in 1995. He then appeared in the 1998 independent films Another Day in Paradise and Desert Blue. That same year, Sarsgaard received a substantial role in The Man in the Iron Mask, playing Raoul, the ill-fated son of Athos. Sarsgaard later achieved critical recognition when he was cast in Boys Don't Cryas John Lotter. He landed his first leading role in the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth7 March 1971
CityScott Air Force Base, IL
CountryUnited States of America
To me, one of the main things that a director does is create the tone of his movie.
Words are words, but the way an actor says them, the way it's framed, puts you either in the world that looks a lot like ours or one that doesn't seem a lot like ours, one that can be farcical or one that can't.
I tend to lose my performance energy the longer things go on for, so I'm always best on the very first take.
I frequently gravitate toward characters that have some urgency or soul.
Even a good politician, someone who is very ambitious, chooses not to see trouble.
Depending on what stage I'm at in my career, I either work or don't work because I've been offered one thing.
I like to work as an actor. Not just for money, but because I really enjoy acting.
I think one of the things that might distinguish me is when I'm going to work as an actor I really try not to worry about my own personal hang-ups and just really concentrate on the work. Because I have such a respect for acting, which is something I feel like I'm constantly learning how to do, that all of my energy is always focused on the acting itself.
I don't spend a lot of time judging anyone I play. Even if their function in the script is to be the villain, I concentrate on what their perspective of the events is. Not even to justify them.
I see how people boss other actors around to try to get a scene favorable to them. I absolutely just never engage in doing that. If someone's going to do it to me, I just let them have it.
It is very possible that I could have ended up on 80 acres of land by myself, and fallen in love at a distance with a gorgeous woman I could never have been with.
Four hours of makeup, and then an hour to take it off. It's tiring. I go in, I get picked up at two-thirty in the morning, I get there at three. I wait four hours, go through it, ready to work at seven, work all day long for twelve hours, and get it taken off for an hours, go home and go to sleep, and do the same thing again.
I mean I don't think it got me interested in acting. I think it might be what makes it so that I can have the idea of the variety of people in the world, different incomes. That helps. When you're going to play someone it's interesting and nice to see experiences that aren't like yours. But there's always the remarkable similarity of all people.
I always think change is important in a character. The most dynamic choices that you can make for a character are always the best ones.