Samuel Barnett Quotes
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I'm a Brit and I just put myself on tape, back in London, for a very distant American project that I thought I didn't stand a chance of getting. And then, I got a call about a week after I had submitted my tape, just saying, "They really like you and want to screen test you." So, I flew to L.A. and did the screen test. And then, I met Elijah [Wood] and did a screen test with him. And then, I had a very nerve-wracking few days back home, waiting and waiting and thinking, "This cannot possibly go my way because that would just be too good to be true." And then, it did.
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My life, my family and my friends are back in the U.K., so ideally I would love the kind of career that is split between London and New York.
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The great irony to Dirk [Gently] is that he sees connections in everything, but the one thing he fails and struggles with most is connecting with other people.
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I have my own faith which I've developed. It's non-denominational. I don't even know if it's about God.
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I love just walking around New York. It's like a whole world in one place.
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I want to be engaged and moved by theatre, there's nothing more disappointing than being left cold. After 'The Author,' I felt wrung out emotionally, like a used tissue.
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We did every scene together, every day for four months, and it could have been a disaster, if we didn't get on, but we clicked straight away. Elijah Wood is just the nicest guy.
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I couldn't have asked for a better acting partner and a better human being to work with. We have to work very closely together, and I felt, in our screen test, that we had really good chemistry, but I wasn't sure if I was just making that up. Max has written a really finely wrought bromance. I have complete trust in Elijah [Wood].
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Dirk Gently [from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency], needs a sidekick, as all good detectives do, and he gets this message from the universe that this guy, Todd Brotzman, played by Elijah Wood, is the guy to help him through this mystery. But of course, that doesn't really explain the breadth of it.
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In New York, I get people coming up to me because 'The History Boys' was such a hit on Broadway, and they show the film all the time on cable over there, so people recognise you.
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Journalists have sometimes looked to my Twitter account and quoted me from there, and that's fine because that's public domain. I know exactly what I'm doing when I post something on Twitter; in a way, it's saying, 'This is who I am, and I don't have anything to hide.'
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Like the Elizabeth I play, Queen Elizabeth is a monarch who actually moves with the times. She gets new information, assimilates it, and changes in order the fit in with the way the world is moving. I admire that.
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It's like saying French shouldn't be taught because you don't understand it because it's new. Shakespeare is just like learning a new, exciting language.
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I like all sorts of art, that's why I love wandering around The National Gallery.
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I really admire paintings that look like an actual snapshot - I think that's just extraordinary.
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Obviously we had to study Shakespeare at school, but to be honest, I was not a fan. I found the language very difficult, and I didn't enjoy watching it or studying it. I auditioned five times for the Royal Shakespeare Company early on in my career, and I didn't even get past the first rounds.
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I never wanted to do Shakespeare; I never liked watching it, it's always frightened me, and I've never been any good at it. But I really wanted to work with the director Tim Carroll and Mark Rylance.
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I have been out of drama school for 13 years, so there are 13 years' worth of graduates behind me.
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I hope it's always going to be a mix between theatre, film and radio. I've been very lucky living in London that you can do all that - in New York and L.A., there's more of a structure for film in L.A. and theatre in New York. In London, our industry is smaller, but it produces brilliant work all in one place.
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[Elijah Wood] has got such a broad outlook. It's so much bigger than just the acting industry.
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This industry isn't fair. It doesn't owe anybody a career. It's just about luck, determination, and showing up and being professional. The rest is out of your hands.
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Max [Landis] writes in quite a heightened way, specifically for Dirk. There's a rhythm and a specific speed to it, and it was very easy to learn because it was so well-written. It just rolled off the tongue. There aren't many auditions that I go for, where I feel like I could actually do the part. But with this one, even though I was not quite sure how to pin Dirk down, I thought I could do it.
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I'd seen Elijah [Wood], when I was a little boy, in The Good Son. And then, I was a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings. It took awhile to get over that whole, "That's Elijah Wood - Frodo, from The Lord of the Rings." I was a mega fan of that. I went to the all-day screenings of the director's cut, where you could see the really long versions of all three movies, in one day.
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The Pre-Raphaelites, while very bothered by what the establishment thought of them, also utterly rebelled against it. In everything - social, sexual, emotional - they were out on a limb, pushing the boundaries.