When you're talking about Tim Burton, you're talking about a guy that has such a visual sense, an aesthetic, a storytelling style. It's like he's got his own genre.
Jackie Earle Haley
I bite the hell out of my fingernails. I can't stop. I should stop. It would be nice to grow my fingernails out. It would be healthier. I could pick up dimes.
I started acting when I was 5 years old. And I was pretty well known for a while. Your self-esteem and your identity start to become wrapped up in that celebrity, and when that starts to fade away, your self-esteem and your identity start to fade away with it.
That transition from child to adult actor is so incredibly elusive. The roles that were coming to me as a young adult were not that great, but I was taking them anyway to pay the rent. And the more bad roles in bad movies I took, the less anybody wanted me for a good role in a good movie.
I'd always avoided stuff like 'Where are they now?' or 'Whatever happened to?' Just 'No thanks, thanks for calling.' You tell me, have you ever seen a 'Whatever happened to' where they seemed anything but pathetic?
There's such a fan base for 'Dark Shadows'. I remember watching the show as a kid, but I wasn't an ardent fan. I didn't run home from school to watch it.
Playing Willie Loomis was really fun for me because it was something nice and different to embody. It was neat playing this drunken servant who was hypnotized by Johnny Depp.
'Alien' is one of my all-time favorite horror films - that has a great monster.
The horror genre is not my favorite. I think it's fun, there's a great place for it and I get a kick out of it, but some stuff I'm too old for. You can't just take 10 guys and stick them in a cabin and off them one at a time - I'm not vested.
I'll give you my worst nightmare. I'm dreaming that I'm onstage, the curtain goes up, and I have no idea what my lines are or what's going on. I think I should know, I kind of know, I remember rehearsing... and the audience is there waiting.
I've never been a big horror genre fan, but I did go see 'Nightmare on Elm Street' in the theaters and I dug it. I thought it was cool.
Robert Englund's done an amazing job over the years playing Freddy. Everybody that's a fan of 'Nightmare' loves Robert and you know so that's a challenge when you've got to step in a big man's shoes like that, so it's scary but it's also exciting.
I do a lot of working out, but I haven't been kicking for a while, so one time I was rehearsing a spinning roundhouse and darned near threw out my leg.
I love working on films and I'd love to do some interesting work, but if somebody asked me, 'Would you like 'Human Target' to continue to be picked up?' The answer is 'Absolutely!' I love working on this show. I love playing Guerrero. I love seeing where it's going.
I think being a character actor is exciting in that it allows you to embody completely different things, whether it's through wild accents or a crazy bad guy or a drunken good guy.
