It was humbling to play Mark Ashton. He was a political activist and a humanist, and there is incredible conviction in his vision. But when you’re telling a political story, humour is crucial; otherwise, it can be in danger of becoming a bit preachy, and the audience can feel like they’ve got an agenda coming full steam at them. Ben Schnetzer Read Quote
You want to bring it every day. But if you have a bad day in the theatre, a couple of hundred people see it. That sucked; we’ll get back to it. You have a bad day on film, it’s just on DVD for the rest of your life. Ben Schnetzer Read Quote
I’ve been incredibly lucky. I know what it’s like to be an unemployed actor, to beat the bricks. I’ve been in the right place at the right time. Ben Schnetzer Read Quote
Life used to be a rite of passage in and of itself. But it’s not our parents’ generation anymore. Ben Schnetzer Read Quote
I really admire people who concern themselves more with how they perceive the world rather than how the world perceives them. I think, as an artist, it’s very important to do that. You can limit yourself a lot if you spend too much time caring about what people think of you. Ben Schnetzer Read Quote
There’s a lot of comedic value to fraternities, but whenever you start messing with power dynamics and you take away consequences, you can tread some dangerous waters. Ben Schnetzer Read Quote
A lot of times, when you’re seeing something that you’ve done, you’re thinking about the experience you had making it, not about the experience of the product. Ben Schnetzer Read Quote
When you’re doing a play, you don’t always have a practical world that you’re working off of. You have to create it for yourself. Ben Schnetzer Read Quote
All those little acting rules you get, one of the interesting ones is, ‘Play the opposite. Don’t play ‘victim.’ Ben Schnetzer Read Quote
When we were shooting ‘The Book Thief,’ I was keeping all these journals. And I remember talking to my mom, really trying to verbalize all the experiences I was having. And I remember my mom saying, ‘Ben, reflection is a retroactive process.’ When you’re going through it, that’s the time to just let it wash over you. Ben Schnetzer Read Quote
