What has been the biggest challenge in your career so far? How did you overcome it?

Ask any actor/actress this question, and you get the same answer. How do I get the next job? There is no magic trick to finding work. You can contact casting agents, producers, search for roles on Spotlight, IMDB or Mandy. However, if you don’t have what the casting agent wants, you’re not getting the job. You could be the wrong build, your Irish accent sounds like a middle-aged Taiwanese man who has the begging of the flu, or maybe it just doesn’t come together that day at the audition. Maybe you’re just too tall or too thin. Sometimes things are out of your control and it happens a lot. If you can not deal with rejection, then look for another career. For me, I never take things personally. Auditions, I love them because you never know what they will bring. It’s not even about the money for me. It’s the thrill of getting the job, being on set and getting lost in the character you are that day. The euphoria of being cast always outweighs the many rejections I get along the erratic path. So, I overcome my hurdles by knowing, sooner or later, I will be cast.

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How do you prepare for the role?

Okay, the first and most obvious is learning lines. Do you want a story behind that? I wake up, read my lines day after day until they were in my head. Cast and crew live happily ever after. After that, I start to look at the relationships between characters within the storyline. One of my first TV credits was playing a guy called Dick Grob (what a name). He was the head of security for Elvis Presley. After researching, I found out that Dick Grob was one of the few people who had Elvis best interest at heart, and Elvis knew that. If you understand relationships between the character on set, you’re on your way to producing good work. I also like to find films that may resemble the character that I have just be cast for. There are some great actors out there, so why not learn from the best. It is also important to keep in touch with the director. You do not want to spend weeks working on your character, only to find out that the director has other ideas.

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What methods or techniques do you use to find truth in your character’s behaviour?

I have never liked methods such as Stanislavski, Meisner or Strasberg. By all means, these methods do help to a certain extent but, if you can’t find the character within conscience, then it will show in your performance. Ever since I was that child in the school playground playing cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, I have always believed that I can be that other person, the villain. My imagination never filtered or diluted over the years. If you can hold on to that childlike imagination, you will produce good work because you believe in it. A child’s mind is increasable, and I have a good example. A friend of mine bought his little boy a Spiderman costume. He told me, as soon as his boy put on the costume, he believed he was Spiderman. He was so convinced that, when he threw himself down the stairs, he thought that a spider web would shoot from his wrists, allowing him to swing from the ceiling and land safely at the bottom of the stair. Fortunately, the boy was okay, just got winded. The moral of that story is don’t get carried away and keep your feet on the ground. We all know some actors have pushed it that little bit too far.