"The Hollywood Reporter"..." " The only time I threw a script is when I wrote it." " That film didn't get released." "It escaped." " ..." "We'll hear from this year's most buzzed about drama actors in television" "Clive Owen, "The Knick,"" "Jon Voight, "Ray Donovan,"" "Justin Theroux, "The Leftovers,"" "Bob Odenkirk, "Better Call Saul,"" "Timothy Hutton, "American Crime,"" "and David Oyelowo, "Nightingale."" "Welcome to "Close Up With The Hollywood Reporter."" "I'm Stacey Wilson, awards editor at "The Hollywood Reporter," and your host." "I want to start with your current roles for which you are here today." "And I'm going to put Bob in the hot seat, since you're closest to me." "You took a lot of risk in playing the lead in "Better Call Saul."" " Did I?" "Okay." " You did." "Meaning mostly the spin-off of "Breaking Bad."" " Sure." "Yeah." " People could have hated me." " There's a lot riding on this." " Also you'd been a comedy performer for most of your life." " Yeah." " So I would like to know what were your biggest fears in taking on this role?" " I remember thinking, "What if I'm terrible?"" " How did you overcome that fear?" " The fear is exactly what you think it is, which is all these people loved "Breaking Bad" so much, and would they even give us a chance?" "Would they watch it and just be mad that we decided to try it, and that there's anything similar at all to this thing that they loved." "I certainly thought about that, but not maybe enough." "So that" "I'm a comedy writer and performer, and so I sort of feel like I always can do that." " You're a good improviser, too." " Yeah, and so if this didn't pan out," "I felt like I'd be okay." "Put the clown shoes back on and I'll be all right." "Um, so that" "I remember when the billboards went up and I thought, "Oh, my God, people are going to see this."" "I think over so many years and so many projects that I've made that no one saw," "I've just gotten used to doing the work d thinking about the work." "And I forget sometimes thathey actually show these things that we make" " And spend money marketing them, too." " So only really then did it really hit me that I could be in for a world-wide kick in the ass, and it could be bad." "Somebody said to me there's no genre for it." "It doesn't ascribe to any genre." "So what is it?" "Look, these are great writers, and I'm sure everyone here feels the same way that it all starts with the writing." "So trusting Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould was not that hard, acally, to do." " I will collect my moronic clients, and, poof, we are gone!" "Neither you nor your lovely abuelita will ever lay eyes on us ever again." "Guaranteed." "Signed, sealed, and delivered." "Assuming, you know, th they're still breathing." " It was important to me that they ose to do this show I the best reasons,and they did." "It was an organic desire of theirs that grew out of writing "Breaking Bad"" "to explore this o character." "And so the way they played out the story and the choices they made showed a lot of confidence." "They took theitime." "So as long as it came from them in a genuine way, then I figured it would be worthwhile and probably great." "And they just managed it so wonderfully." " Fans are into it." "David, what were your biggest fears in taking on your role in "Nightingale"?" "Obviously, the film was very challenging" "You're the only actor in the piece, play a soldier suffering from PTSD o is sort of confin to his home." "What scared you the most about doing this part?" " With "Nightingale" that was a film that was not necessarily made with television in mind." "So when I first read the script," "I just thought this simply can't be done." "One person in a house for 90 minutes, having committed this heinous act, unraveling, talking to himself, essentially." "Having come out of the theater, you get those opportunities more often there." "In theater, what's wonderful about it is that you make this pact with the audience that we're going to go somewhere fantastical a lot of the time." "Whicis, basically, if I say 500 troops are going to come screaming through this place, you just buy into it." "So I had had those kind of experiences in the theater." "When I read this film and just thought this feels like an experiment." "This feels like something that cinematically isn't achievable." "I jumped on it." "Because I truly think that for us as actors, half of what enables you to take risks and be a good actor is confidence." "And confidence is born out of taking risks." "And this was a risk." " Look, I'm not even dressed yet, and the police haven't come to arrest me." "Turns out there's not a law that says you have to get up every morning at 7:00, put on your clothes and your makeup and your costume jewelry." "Whoever would have guessed that?" " We made this film for an artsy, independent-minded audience, and the place it's found an enthusiastic home is HBO." "And I don't know that that would have always have been the se that this film would find that kind of a home." "And it's incredibly encouraging that not only is a company like HBO prepared to jump onboard this film, but that they know there's an audience out there for it" "So I nev thought "This is going to be on televisn." "Millions of people are going to potentially get to see it."" "And I was terrified before taking on the prospect." "Now that it has this kind of platform, the terrification has multiplied somewhat." "But that's okay." " 're all quite alike in some ways." "We're each unique, of course, but we're all quite alike." "We have this challenge ahead of us, and we have our method of going into the story and trying to find the life of this character and have all these questions which we bring to a piece." "And the questions comes from the piece itself." "For me, when I was asked to do "Ray Donovan,"" "given a scriptthat was verspare for this character of mine, but very powerful." "Because when I wasn't on screen doing something completely outrageous," "I was being lked about." "So it was an important characr and I had to find a way too it." "I understood why they sent it to me, because it was a character who had some danger to him, and then some charm as well." " A good man fee bad when he es something wrong." "You understand?" " Yes." " All right." "What did your father say about what happened?" " He was supposed to take me to the kid's house to apologize." " Apologize?" "Donovans don't apologize." " But you just said a good man feels bad when he does something wrong." " But he don't tell no one about it." "That's for you." "You got to pay attention to what I'm saying." " I looked at it, and I didn't know how he was going to do some of this stuff." "You know, how it was going to come out through me." "But you make it yourself, and you go through this process." "And I was very fortunate to work with very, very good people." "And I must say that the cast was impressive to me as well." "Liev Schreiber as somebody I wantedto work with since I'd worked with him before, but somebody whose career I was watching." "And I was saying, "This guy is a great--"" " And also transitioning to television." "He had never done television." "Clive, what were your reservations in taking on the role in "The Knick?"" "You hadn't done television in awhile and this is a period piece on Cinemax." " I didn't really have many, to tell you the truth." " You had Steven Soderbergh on your side, which helps." " Steven Soderbergh." "But the fear of being good in it and doing the job well-- you know, the usual fear of everything." "No, I wasn't looking at all to do television." "Steven Soderbergh called me up." "He'd read this one script and he said, "I want to turn it into a 10-hour TV show." "Let me know what you think."" "And 50 minutes later there was no way I would not be doing it." "They'd done so much research about that time, that world, what was happening in New York as well." "It was such a fantastic piece of writing and such an original look at that period, a look at the world of medicine at the turn of the century, which I'd done a very small film years ago" "which dealt in the world of medicine in 1900." "And I knew that was a really important time where things were developing really quickly." "It was hugely exciting in the world of medicine." "I think every now and again you come across a piece of material that awakens why you do what you do." "It sort of galvanized me." "I read this thing and I go," ""God, that's why I want to do this."" "It was one of those pieces of writing and I just knew I had to do it." "Steven said that after he read that original script, he knew that the next director to read it would direct it if he didn't say yes." "And I felt silarly." "I just felt it was too good a piece of writing." " It's been tried once before on a Labrador Retriever." " And what happened?" " There isn't a day goes by wherI don't miss that dog." " ( coughing )" " If you could attempt to suppress your cough." " I did a lot of TV when I was young, and the thing that I was always fearful about doing TV is just the amount of exposure, really, that as an actor you show your wares." " Every week." " You show everything you can do, and people get very used to what you can do." "I think there's something about the format of film where you sort of arrive in something, you play a specific character, you then appear in something else." "You can hold your cards a bit closer." "And on TV, it's demanding, it's a lot, and you're constantly revealing in a way." "That was a concern, but it was such a wild, original piece of material ana character that I didn't feel was particularly close to me." "I felt absolutely fine about that." " And the rest of you, you had all transitioned from film." "What's been your experience doing television?" "Tim?" "Did you have those same fears about the exposure factor of being out there, I guess?" " Well, not in the case of "American Crime."" "It was such an amazing piece of material that John Ridley wrote." "The pilot opens with this man getting a phone call in the middle of the night saying that his son has died and he's got to go to another state and identify the body." "And I just thought as the starting point for a character, it was great." "Amazing." "Very complex." "You don't know anything about this man." "Gets on a plane with this knowledge, goes to Modesto, California, and has to identify this body, and then has an emotional reaction to it." "Then he wato meet his ex-wife who he hasn't seen for 20 years" "Felicity Huffman's character." "And they have to deal with this sudden tragic event that has happened." "The whole script, all the characters, it was really an extraordinary piece of writing." "And then it kind of hit me what I would have to do." " You have a very intense scene at the very beginning in the bathroom which is just heart-wrenching." " That's Matt." "That's him." " Why don't we go sit down somewhere?" " Can I" "Is there a bhroom I could use?" "( screaming )" " All that was filmed in the same day." "John Ridley made sure it was filmed in such a way that it made sense continuity-wise." "And like we've all been talking about, it starts with the material." "It was just very strong." "We didn't know anything about the future episodes." "We were kept in the dark about it." "He wanted us to live in the moment of the day of the character." "Which was challenging at first, but then became kind of interesting." "And to play a character that you don't know anything about their past for a very long time-- no backstory, no exposition-- was really interesting to me." " Justin, we spoke earlier about shows that don't fit clearly into one genre." ""The Leftovers" is a perfect example of this." " "The Leftovers" is essentially a sci-fi piece but with very little "sci"." "It's mostly" " In talking to the creators of the show," "Damon and Pete Berg, who directed the pilot, it was making sure that it was grounded in a reality." "Because the concept is so insane and knowing that we weren't going to really be revisiting that moment of when everyone disappears and all the rest of it, it had to be as rooted as possible." "Even the way it's kind of shot in this sort of verité style lends itself-- and also the material." "When we're looking through things that are attractive to us, we're safeguarding ourselves with fantastic showrunners and fantastic writers as well." " "My feet have closely followed his steps." "I have kept to his way without turning aside." "I have not departed..."" ""...not departed from the commandment of his lips." "I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread."" " Most of our shows do a 10 or 12-episode format." "There's something that feels manageable about that." " Right." " I did a television show a long time ago in the early '90s, sort of a cop procedural, and the volume of work that you had to do to do 24 was just crushing." "And it's not necessarily the material that you're loving, and you're showing up at 4 AM on a Monday and leaving at 4 AM on a Friday." "And like Clive was saying, you're having to cycle through your bag of tricks so much that you start to fall into bad habits and whatever." "For some reason, that 10 to 12 episode format really feels manageable." "And just when you're at the end of your tether you're able to pull the cord and get out of there." "And the material's usually much better because the writer themself is not being forced" " to just crank out" " Fewer writers, too." "It creates bad habits for everybody." " Coming up, we'll talk about turning points in their careers." " Welcome back to "Close Up With The Hollywood Reporter."" "We're talking with six of the year's hottest drama actors." "What would you say was that biggest turning point in your careers?" "The role you consider your breakout performance or a relationship you made or an education that you had." " At one point in my career I was getting older, and changing from a leading man of sorts and trying to find what my persona was going to be as I got older." "And I took the turn when I did "Runaway Train."" "People looking at the script to "Runaway Train,"" "they said Jon Voight is going to do this" ""What?" "What's the matter with you people?"" "It looked like a complete failure was about to be given birth." "But I had to change myself for that character, and going into that direction there were many-- that was a route for many other characters that came about." "A character in "Heat,"" "a character in "Anaconda," "Holes."" "All these characters came from that route that I had taken." " For me, in 2010 I was cast as Martin Luther King in the film "Selma."" "Then the film didn't happen for another four years." "But just being cast in that role had such a dramatic effect on my career." "It was on the basis of nothing other than a "Hollywood Reporter" announcement that" " Isn't that more terrifying in a way?" " I know, the" " That's why I always loved auditioning for something, because then at least you know you earned the part." "Whenever an offer comes in, it's like, "Oh, God."" " Exactly right." "And that's what happened." "I started getting offers." " Based purely on that announcement." " Based purely on the announcement of some actor who no one could say his name." "No one knew where he was from." "And I started getting offers." "It really threw me." "I almost needed to catch up with it." "In a way it was a blessing that the film didn't then happen for another four years, because I'm in the midst of what I can feel is a turning point in my career having done "Selma."" "I've sort of had time to kind of go," ""Okay, I've kind of grown into this a little bit."" " What roles were you offered right after the announcement?" " They were roles in studio movies, which hadn't happened up until that point." "of the Apes"was a film for Fox, and they were going after actors who I really admired." "And I heard about this and an offer came through." "The director of "The Help" literally phoned me up and said, "So we're doing this film." "We need a preacher in it." "I need someone with a sort of Martin Luther King energy and I read that you're about to do this." "So come and practice on us." Literally." "So I did a scene in "The Help."" "It was this film "Nina" that I did with Zoe Saldana where she plays Nina Simone." "That came in as a straight offer." "And before anyone had" " What if Selma had fallen apart or not even happened at that point?" " It would have been my being smuggled into Hollywd moment." "It would have still worked, is the truth of the matter." " How about the rest of you?" "Turning points?" "How about you, Clive?" " I think that when you look back at a career there's probably a number of them." "I would say, for me, getting into drama school." "As a young kid who had come from a very working class family in a working class town, fell in love with acting, had a little youth theater in my hometown which I sort of fell into and sort of got the passion for acting." "And then was unemployed in my hometown and suddenly realized this passion is not going to happen where I am." "And I got lucky." "I spent two years in my hometown unemployed." "I made one application to RADA and I got in." "It was like somebody saying you're going from there on this route." "And there I was, thrown in with a group of people who were as crazy about it as me." "And it felt like that of everything that happened in my life was the biggest thing in terms of ending up with a career in acting." "I did a big TV show when I was quite young that was quite a gear shift." "Then, really, the film thing was a very tiny film I did called "Croupier,"" "which was made for no money, which wasn't really given a release in the UK" "And there was one guy who became a very good friend called Mike Kaplan, and he came from the world of marketing" "He had put out all of Kubrick's films and he worked with Altman." "He fell in love with this little film, "Croupier,"" "and he championed it in America." "He showed it to Altman, showed it to various people." "It got the tiniest release any film could, but it got some really great reviews." " It was a big deal." " I saw it in the theatre." " Yeah, but it was tiny." "I think the deal when it was originally released was with a company that was putting out about four low-budget films in one week, and if any of them hit with a review or something, they would carry it on." ""Croupier" got lucky and it got some reviews, but single-handedly this guy shaped the campaign." "And it was in those days where a film stayed around for awhile." "It ended up being in the cinema for months and months." "And although it was tiny, it was for me the opening up of film and the opening up in America for me." "I'd done a lot of TV and theater and very small films back at home, but that tiny little film which somebody once said didn't get released, escaped." " That's great." "It sort changed things for me quite a lot." " Tim, I imagine that winning an Oscar at age 20 was a bit of a turning point for you." "You're one of the youngest Oscar-winners in history for "Ordinary People,"" "which is one of the most beautiful movies ever made." " That was an incredible book, an incredible role." "The script that Alvin Sargent wrote was just amazing." "And then Redford, it was his first film that he directed, and getting cast in it, there were at least ten auditions and they were very involved with him." "I mean, you had to act the whole script." "And that was the third audition." "And then there was bringing in other people like Elizabeth McGovern and pairing you up and things like that." "I remember a very bizarre screen test with Ann Margaret" " Oh, to play her mom." " That Mary Tyler Moore played." "So the process of getting the part was quite something." "And then when that happened," "I was incredibly excited." "Then I realized, now I have to go do it." "It was a very challenging part." "But Redford was quite amazing with the rehearsal process." "Once we got to Chicago we started working." "I felt very isolated throughout the experience." "I found out later that Redford has said," ""Everybody in the show, stay away from Tim."" " Wow." " "Don't say, 'Hey, great job today.'" "Don't say, 'That scene went really well.'"" "He wanted to create a kind of isolation." "And he thought that that would be a very effective-- and it certainly was." "It put me in a place where I'd go back to my hotel room and I was pacing in the Waukegan Sheraton wondering if I was doing a half-assed-- you know, if I was doing okay." " Did he give you feedback at the end of the day?" " No." "Never." " Nothing." " Wow." " Never anything." " To this day, he's never spoken to you." " To this day" "In fact, the last day of filming he just waved from across the thing and that was it." " He saw you at the Oscars." " You scream, "How'd I do?"" " No, he would occasionally-- he would occasionally say," ""What happened today in that scene," "I want you to remember."" "He would give a specific example." "He wanted it to come from him." "So he did communicate to me about how the work was going." "and upcoming scenes and things like that." "He just didn't want to have anybody-- he didn't want to have the whole social part of it going on." "He wanted me to sort of stay in a bubble, I guess." "And then the movie was received quite well." "It came out and affected a lot of people." "The awards came." " How hard was it for you to recover from that hype and move on and decide what your next move was, because that had to have been a lot of pressure." " I was lucky because I was working." "I was in the middle of rehearsing "Taps."" "I remember flying back from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, for the Oscars." "The Academy Awards were going to happen on I think it was a Sunday or a Monday, I forget." "But it was the year that Reagan was shot." " Oh, right." "Right." " And they postponed the Oscars for a couple of days." " Right." " Everybody was very concerned, didn't know what was going to happen." "The show went on a couple of days later, and then the following morning" "I went back Valley Forge to continue rehearsing this new job." "I think that what really helped me then is that" "I recognized it as kind of a singular time and event associated with a movie, the role." "And I didn't put anything more on it than that." "I realized that I had to get back and start this new role, this new job, and I think that that kind of put me in a good frame of mind." " Did you see a lot offers coming in in the same way David just described post Oscar win?" "Was it suddenly just a flood of offers?" " Yeah, I mean, there was suddenly" "I got offered a script called "Risky Business."" " I've heard of that." " Sounds familiar." " Nobody saw it." " No." "Yeah." "It's an indie." "Indie movie, yeah." " I remember it was the same-- it was going to shoot at exactly the same time that "Daniel" was going to shoot in New York." " So I" " God." " "Risky Business" was a great script." " It was a great script." " It was a great character, great part." "So different from "Ordinary People" or "Taps."" "Sue Mengers was my agent at the time and she just thought I was out of my mind to not do "Risky Business"" "and to go to New York and do "Daniel"" "with Sidney Lumet." "But it's what I wanted to do, and I'm glad I did it that way." " What you said there about what Redford did while you were doing the film is really interesting." "Because you sethat film and you see the results of not having your back patted throughout the whole thing and kept in an uncomfortable place." "It's kind of a thing that hits my mind." "It's amazing that at the age of 20 you won and managed to somehow put that away and just keep on with the work." "But in the era now of campaigning for awards, it's become this thing." " You were in the belly of the beast this year." " Literally." "And something that really strikes me is that I don't know how you go on to win or be celebrated in that way, and that very small group of people who you've campaigned in order for them to pat you on the back" "don't creep into your head the next time you're on a set." "trying to give a good performance." "It's one of the dangers, I think, of what we do, and how much noise is now around." " It'sery hard to move away from that." " I think that you were talking about t knowing where the story's going." " Yeah." " And things like how you were treated by Redford." "Isolated a little bit." "Not encouraged to perceive yourself in the role, but just to play the moment to moment." "I think that's so important." "They always want to send me scripts ahead and tell me what the outline is." " You mean on "Saul?"" " Yeah." "I don't want to know what happens as the story evolves." "I just want to know what I want right now today in this character." "Another good thing for that is to shoot in Albuquerque." " Very in the moment." " Yeah." "Yeah." " It helps a lot." "Yeah." " You, you just" " Focused." " You're focused." "There's not" " There's nothing else-- - the isolation." " No distractions." "No..." " David, I had a follow-up question for you." "A lot of people perceived your not being nominated for an Oscar as a snub." "I would say everyone here would agree that you deserved it." "But I'm wondering, are you relieved at all that you didn't get to that point where you can now retain that pie of yourself as an actor that maybe wouldn't have been over-exposed?" "To have people constantly saying to me" ""I think you should have got this!"" "You kind of go, "Well, hold on." "I went to my 10-year-old's poetry recital the other day and he gave this amazing poem about Martin Luther King that I didn't know he was going to do." "That's why you make a film like that." "I have now had my performance validated in a way that I will never let go of, and it's a great lesson to learn at this stage of my career because I'm never going to let it in." "We all love our back's being patted for what we do, in such a subjective artistic endeavor." "But I think to keep your powder dry, to shoot in Albuquerque, to find your Albuquerque, where" "Find your Albuquerque." "Someone write the book, for goodness' sake." " The New Mexico film council is going to be so happy about this." " I think they have a new license plate... in New Mexico." " Welcome back to "Cse Up With The Hollywood Reporter."" "We're talking with the actors behind TV's hottest dramas." "would like to know who do you most trust to give you honest feedback and adce about your career in Hollywood?" " I think you'd all agree, my wife." " She is a talent manager." "She knows her stuff." " That's just as well." " Yes." " She is a talent manager." "She reads more scripts than I'll ever read." "She's pretty good at telling me what's up." " You're very lucky, then." " Yeah." " Anyone else?" " I pray about it." " Good for you." "I mean, for me, personally, I really do." "Tus out God has very good taste." "The remit I have for myself is quite specific." "My wife and I talk about this a lot." "I want to put in the world things that I can defend to my children when they're of age to watch them." "I'm not a subscriber to the idea that you can make whatever and it doesn't effect culture." "What we do is so powerful, I think." "It does shape people's worldview." "I've been to Africa and seen places where they don't have running water, but they have a tiny little screen with a satellite dish on a rickety tin shack." "We have a very myopic world which is about" ""What'that going to do to my standing as an actor?" "Is that going to get me better opportunies?"" "The things that we're looking at sometimes internally are not actually engaging with what the effect the work is having culturally." "So like I say, prayer is a big one for me." "But, you know, does my dad want me doing that?" "That influences things, for me, anyhow." " How about you, Justin?" " Well said." " Usually it's a gut thing." "It also depends what it is." "If it's something comedic, I'll check with some of my other friends." " You're also a writer" " Write sometimes." "But I've made mistakes when people say, "You should do this" "This would be really smart."" "Or "This is a great director." "I ow the part's not what you want, but you should do that."" "I rued many days on set where I've been like," ""Why did I do this?" "This is so--"" " That's something" " You went against-- mistakes I made as a younger actor where you go, like, you've signed up for a play or something, and you think, "I don't love that or this,"" "and then you're stuck doing it for six months or something." "I've been in many sad situations." "An early TV show I did, which was that cop procedural." "It was just like I wanted to hang myself." "All I was doing was, like, on the phone," ""Chief, you're going to want to hear this."" "I was like ( bleep )." "And you go, "Ugh." "I can't."" " But you're so good at that." "But it was a tough job to do and it was a waste of time." " But you learned that you didn't want to do it again." " I learned I didn't want to do it again." "Writing afforded me a little bit more of a selective ability to pick d choose roles." "because I could squeeze things between the cracks." "You've all talked about the feelings you get when you know you want to do something." "I'd love to know what is your biggest turn-off when you're reading a script and you just think, "Oh, God." "I definitely don't want to do this."" "What makes you want to throw the script across the room?" " I hate when I think I know what's going to happen and then it's happening." " Okay." " It's never happened to any of us." " I'm sure." " This is all theoretical." "This is all theoretical." " The only time I threw a script is when I wrote it." "I do that a lot." "I prty much do that every time." "It's why my arm muscle is so big." "I hate that feeling of," ""I think this is just going this one place." "But it can't be, right?" "My brain's putting this together--"" " I've read too many scripts." " Yeah, I've read too many scripts." "And then it's doing that-- whatever that" " Or saying what you're doing." " ...whatever that obvious thing is." " Yeah, it just makes me feel let down." "I feel bad." "I don't want to know." "I don't want to figure it out." "I want when it happens, whatever the turns or the depth or the growth of it, or when the story evolves," "I want it to make sense, emotional sense, but I want to not have predicted it." " You kind of want the character to keep moving." "You want the character to keep evolving and moving and showing you-- as you're reading the script showing you new things about who the character is." " Also, you want to be able to bring something to it that's not plainly stated." " Yeah, but if you see the same thing happening over and over, the same position of the character is being taken, and as you said, you know where it's going, you don't connect with it." " I think the amazing thing is that audiences are ready for these shows." "I mean, it's crazy that audiences are patient and go, "Yeah, yeah." "Bring me a whole different era."" "That's the mind-blowing thing is that the audience is excited." "Great." "This is a different era in Clive's case." "And it's going to be not famous people and it's not a genre, ere's not a murder necessarily." "It's pretty amazing." " I think audiences are ready to follow character development instead of just holding on to story or plot and get invested in character." " It's kind of amazing." " Yeah." "Yeah." " Part of that's because of the way it can be digested now." "Must-see TV isn't really a thing anymore." "You can consume it all in one batch if you prefer it that way." "Or you can download it." "Whatever." " Yeah." "One of the really interesting things that's going on with television as juxtaposed with film, there's so much fear in film of going in a direction that will be prohibitive to an audience paying money to go to the movie theater," "that it's often well-trodden worlds." "And now what's happening in television, the audience is telling all of us as artists, as film, television, what they actually want." "We have a smaller world now." "We've seen it all." "Therefore, when you take me on a journey that's unexpected," "I will sign up for that." " But you know, I don't" "At this time in our careers, television and film is not the same as when I started out." "People did television or they did film." "They didn't mix the two." "Now we mix, you know?" "And television is giving us the opportunity to do some serious stuff and adventurous stuff that is not being offered the actor because of what David expressed in terms of the commercial aspect." " Right." " I was always a character actor even when I was a young fellow." ""Coming Home" was as close as I could get to a leading man." " But" " Are you saying as opposed to Redford at the time, who was the consummate leading man." " Or any of these great guys." "Listen, I have the greatest respect for the so-called leading men guys." "Newman and Redford and those fellas and the guys today." "It's wonderful." "They have to know what they're doing." "But I've always been a character actor." "I'm always looking at each part that I get and saying, "Who is he?"" " Like, it's not me with a different name." " Who is this guy?" " Yeah." " Who am I gonna play?" " Who is this fellow?" " And leading men, by the way, they develop a style from, as you know, they develop a style from their own personal life and things, and they make adjustments." "They don't think they're playing the same character all the time either." "But they just have a smaller palette, and they're very subtle." "And sometimes they pride themselves on doing less and less and less." "So it's a wonderful thing to see, that kind of poise." "So I have great respect for that aspect." "But for me, I was a character actor." "I was getting older, and I wasn't being offered the same kinds of parts." "And then I was fered this part and I knew that I would have to change myself physically in every way, and approach this to see if I could do this mountain." "And it was successful." " And become comfortable dancing in a towel, too." "Yeah, too." "We had not seen that before." " I was trying to make this a dignified portion of this roundtable, but you've broken in." " Welcome back to "Close Up With The Hollywood Reporte"" "With me are six of the most captivating drama actors in television." "What do you wish agents better understood about working with actors?" " How great we are." "No, um..." " I don't know." " You're married" " Agents seem to have so-- I feel sorry for t" "They work in these companies that have just grown and grown and expanded, and they have so many projects coming through." "So many people in this business, whether it's agents or studio people, they do start with a genuine love of the work and the craft and-- not everyone." "But a lot of-- most of them." " Yeah." " And I think it gets beaten out of them and they just get swarmed and swamped with projects and demands and extraneous needs of the company." "And I think they kind of-- it's got to be very hard to not lose touch with what you cared about when you started when you're on that side of the business." "Again, there's so many demands from your company." "So I feel bad for them." "I think their desire to make something or to see things made and help things get made is genuine, or it came from a genuine place maybe at one time." "We can sequester ourselves from the public awareness of us or how we participate in the awards season or our publicity presentations." "Especially, I think it helps if you're older to realize that that's just this little bubble thing." "and that tomorrow I'm going to be on set and have to figure out that role and I have to play those moments honestly, and they're just very separate things." " Yeah." "They totally don't" " It's silly." "I just think with those people, especially in agencies, these agencies are huge, and they represent actors and musicians and sports." "And I think they represent onions and flowers." "And-- and, like" ""We need you to do-- We need to sell more onions." "So can your character be eating onions?"" "I don't know if they represent vegetables yet, but they will." " But don't you think you get the representation you deserve in a sense?" "I think one of the mistakes that actors can sometimes make is to feel like an employee as opposed to an employer." " You're right." "You're right." " I pay you a wage to do that job." "And so therefore, get onboard with with how I run my company and what I want that company to represent and we're going to have a great time." "I think that actually agents want that." "They want you to tell them which way you want to go." "Otherwise theyre in a corporate situation whereby it's just the sausage factory." "But I have found that the people I have had as reps," "I tell them what I want to do." "That actually empowers them to go and do something probably a little bit different than they're doing with everyone else." "I think as young actors, that's a big one." "You think, "Oh, my goodness!" "I got an agent!"" "So suddenly everything they're saying to you is like something you feel you have to lean into as opposed to, "No, no, no." "This is where I want to go." " Help me facilitate that."" " Right." "Great advice." "Don't go away." "We'll be right back with more." " Welcome back to "Close Up With The Hollywood Reporter."" "If you stopped acting today, what would you do with the rest of your life?" "Start with Justin." " Probably write, I would hope." " You have that good backup career." " Hopefully." "I'd just probably write stuff." "I'm not very good at many things." "I'm not a very bright man." "No, but I wouldn't be able to do anything that has to do with numbers." " Do you think we're going to let you get away with that?" "It took a couple of beats before I said anything." " No, but I mean, I don't think" "I don't think I could work in a corporate environment or be an agent or sometng like that." "It would have to be something creative." "But I hope I don't have to stop acting." " I think I'd probably want to build things." "A tree hou, furniture." " It's something I do," " Good for you." "and I enjoy doing that when I'm not acting." "So I'd be very happy to have a wood shop and make things." "I think that's what I'd probably want to do." " I would do comedy, write a bunch of silly stuff." "That's just what I do." "Or I'd be at the dog park." "I don't know if I'd get paid" " Find a way to get paid to be at the d park." " I'd figure that out." " How about you, Clive?" " I always think that's quite a scary question, because it often comes up." "Because it's the only thing I've ever wanted to do." "Do you have a hobby?" "Not really." "No." "I mean, I enjoy-- I watch a lot of sport and I do things, but not th I can make a career out oat my age." " Maybe you can walk dogs with Bob." " Dog park's pretty great." " How about you, Jon?" " I'd probably spend the rest of my life being a baby-ster." "I love children." "I likeo spend as much time as I can with kids." "Then I can be anything I want to be." " Right." "How about you, David?" " For me, I'm very consciously trying to get to the point where I'm going to be allowed to produce." "I just love creating." "And I love the process of seeing something come to fruition." "It's so hard to get movies made." "But when you do, there's just nothing quite like it." " You can still do both." " Yeah, hopefully." " I think we all found our Albuquerque." " It's right here." "It had been in this room all along." "Then for our final bonus round question, which is very hard-hitting, so gird yourself." "If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life what would it be?" " Fried plantain." " Wow." "And, man, I could-- I could happily" "The idea of it actually makes me happy." "The idea of just eing fried plantain." "Yes." " How about you, Jon?" " I eat to live and not live to eat." " Oh, come on." "Pick one." " My-- my" " A lot of people, yeah" " That sounds good, doesn't it?" "Doesn't it, Bobby?" " I think that" " I think that as you get older-- fellas, as you get older, things happen to your body and you have to protect yourself against different kinds of things." "And I'm not much of a guy for medicines, so I find I have to have certain vegetables." "And the vegetable that I've stuck on that doesn't seem to be doing any harm with my little difficulties is broccoli." "And I'm one of those kids in the beginning of my life," "I didn't want any broccoli." "And now I'm just having broccoli to take care of my vegetable of the day." " Is someone force-feeding you broccoli?" " Wow." "Broccoli wins." " It's a good choice." " That doesn't happen often." " How about you, Clive?" " It's probably fresh truffle on very good pasta with a very good glass of red wine." " Fancy." " Wow." " Oh, he's a real" " I'll have wh he's having." " That's fun, I mean" " David, do you want to change your answer now?" " I would say white truffle." "White truffle when in season." "A great pasta and a great, yeah-- a great Italian red." "That would be" " I'm going to have the Clive Owen special." " Bob, do you have a" " They can't get it in Albuquerque." " Ice cream." "I eat" " Ice cream?" " I'm a connoisseur." "And chocolate." " Very good." "Justin?" " Pasta." "I'll take it any way." " Yeah." " Usually." " All right, well, it looks like" "Clive's hosting a dinner party" " I know, please do." "We got all dressed up for it." " Well, thank you all for being here." " Thank you."