People use the Method as a shield; it shields them from being vulnerable. I hear all these young actors who are like, 'I'm Method, I'm gonna go live in the house, you know, I totally get it, I've done it, I've been there', but one thing I know is it kills spontaneity.
I tell young actors to do anything that will sustain them.
I always say that life is not easy for anybody. People hear about the young actors who have a rough life, but there are plenty of other kids who aren't actors who have a rough time, too, and I don't know if the ratio is any different.
My career was full of struggles and dreams, disappointments and peaks and valleys. But there was no Twitter, no Facebook or TMZ. Young actors could make mistakes and not become the focus of tabloids.
You know, young actors say all the time, 'Should I use my own life experience?' And my response is, 'What choice do you have?'
Most actors nowadays are models turned actors. That's why a lot of young actors are terrible. You have to learn how to act. It is not something that you can just do.
Heath Ledger's performance in 'The Dark Knight' quite simply changed the game. He raised the bar not just for actors in superhero films, but young actors everywhere; for me. His performance was dark, anarchic, dizzying, free, and totally, thrillingly, dangerous.
It's a wonderful thing working with young actors. I know a lot of people don't like working with children. I actually adore it, because you watch their imagination open up and you watch them start to learn this job that I've been doing for so long. They come with such a lack of cynicism.
Unlike other young actors I've worked with who will remain nameless, Zoey Deutch and Lucy Fry would never go out partying after work, but would immediately hunker down to start working on the reams of labyrinthine dialogue they had to navigate for the next day's work.
Even now, there are young actors who want careers as romantic leading men, and the best thing is not to reveal you're gay.