Tobin Bell
Tobin Bell
Tobin Bell is an American film and television character actor, known for his portrayal of John Kramer/Jigsaw of the Saw film series. After years of work doing stand-ins and background work on films, he got his first major acting job in Mississippi Burningand went on to star in made-for-television films and guest star in television shows throughout the 1990s...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth7 August 1942
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
play jigsaw-puzzles finding-yourself
Saw is like a big jigsaw puzzle. When you put a jigsaw puzzle together, you put the bottom left corner together first, and then you find yourself working on the upper right corner... Thats the way Saw plays out.
interesting way energy
What's interesting is that you can have a set that's very calm, very smooth, very cooperative... and end up with a terrible movie. And you can have a set that's really horrible as far as relationships and volatility, and come up with a great movie. Sometimes that energy gets infused into what ends up on film - it's interesting in that way.
intelligent trying directors
I've worked with multiple directors throughout the 'Saw' series with a lot of conversations as they bring their particular installment to the screen. If I've been able to do anything throughout the course of these films, it's been to help shape dialogue and to try to make things as delicate and as intelligent as I can.
girl dad son
I'm always amazed... I took my 11-year-old to an oceanography camp, and these girls came over to me, and my son was like 'Oh here we go, Dad,' because they had been looking. They were like, 'You're the guy, aren't you?' And I said, 'Well, maybe.' They said, 'He is, he's the guy on 'Charmed!''
responsibility hands needs
An actor puts himself in the hands of a director. And the director's first responsibility, obviously, is to tell the story, but the smallest thing that's not true reads on the screen. So if a director sees that an actor is not believable, he needs to help him become believable.
artist views games
Anything that exists on the human palette is, from my point of view, fair game for artists to portray. You don't have to go see it if you don't want to, so don't go.
track mind special
Actors have seven tracks going in their minds: They've got all the research they've done for the part, then they have whatever the director asked them to do, then they've got what the departments like special effects need them to do.
waiting saws fans
Saw fans are manic, when it comes to details, so they're going to say, "Wait a minute! Why is that like that? It wasn't like that before." And, they're right.
play people fans
Horror fans are very passionate people, and they are very much into the 'Saw' thing. So they watch sometimes as carefully as the writers and producers do, in terms of the way the story plays out.
years saws six
'Saw' is a particularly popular film with 14-30 year olds, so I'll be at a playground and meet six or 10 skateboarders who just wanna talk about 'Saw.'
strong powerful character
You know, the best-laid plans of mice and men... I like playing bad guys, and I don't have a problem doing that. They're interesting characters, and there's as many different kinds of bad guys as there are good guys - they're rich, they're strong, they're powerful, and so that's fine with me.
rocks play want
If you're an impressionistic painter and you want to paint expressionism, you've got to change. You've got to figure out a way to do it and do it. If you've been playing jazz all your life and you want to start to play rock n' roll, blues, then do it.
thinking interesting people
'Saw VI' has a really interesting theme about the ripple effect. Everything you do affects the guy next to you, which affects the guy next to him, which affects her over here. And you might think that what you're doing is not that significant, but just the way you respond to other people makes the world the way it is.
play scripts saws
There are a lot of considerations that come into play when you craft one of these 'Saw' scripts, and there's only so much you can put into them.