I'd like to make character-based dramas. I end up writing thrillers a lot - these psychological character-based things with weird people doing horrible things to each other - coming to a theatre near you!
Joseph Mazzello
Make acting seem real and as if it weren't acting. Just make it real.
I went to USC and tried to learn about the other side of the camera a little bit.
My parents always instilled in me this feeling of wanting to be a normal person. I never moved out to L.A. as a kid and got into that scene and that whole thing that happens to kid actors that's the reason they go off the deep end.
People are always like, 'Oh, 'Jurassic Park' is on...' or 'Oh, 'The River Wild' is on...' I actually haven't seen any of my movies in a long time. Being more self-aware now, and being an adult, I'm a little bit embarrassed to watch them.
I realized that acting was the thing I was still maybe the best at. Of the things I felt like I was good at, that was the thing that came the most naturally to me.
When 'The Pacific' came around, I had to audition the old-fashioned way. It was the casting director and then the producer and then another producer and another producer and then Spielberg and Hanks.
Being an actor helps me direct a little bit, when I do that, which I haven't been able to do that much, but I plan to in the future. There are a lot of reasons for that, but certainly because I feel like you know how to talk to actors, and you know what they need from you if you've been one yourself.
Acting is always going to be number one, but what I learned in film school, I want to make that happen too, so I'm going to actually start working on my own.
