Name	Thomas Jane
Height	5'10
Naionality	American
Date of Birth	22-Feb-1969
Place of Birth	America
Famous for

In an Indian film that I did when I was 17 years old, and that's how I got into acting. I was living in Maryland, and some Indians came to Washington DC looking for a blonde kid to appear in an Indian film. It was like a Romeo and Juliet love story between a white American and an Indian girl. They wanted me to stay in India and I did another film over there, they gave me an apartment, a car and I was an Indian movie star at 17. But then I decided to return to America, studied acting, did a lot of theatre.

"You gotta start somewhere. Whether it's indie film or whatever. Anything's a start, wherever it happens to fall. But, you can't just come out of nowhere and jump into an $80 million film, I don't think you'll ever see that happen. But I've always wanted to do a picture like this." - On his indie career start and Deep Blue Sea (1999).

I think that leading man status opens up a number of doors for you and allows you the opportunity to do a number of different kinds of roles, so I don't see myself leaving behind character work just because I can headline movies. But it's certainly more interesting to be where I'm at in my life now, to be a more integral part of the process of creating a film and taking less of a backseat and more of a front seat driver opportunity is interesting to me now.

"I try to work with people who are better than me. I for a long time considered myself a journeyman actor where I was learning my skills and honing my craft and waiting for the opportunity for something like this (The Punisher (2004)) to come along. I'm not good at vocalizing what my exact approach is, but I believe in using whatever works and making a sort of amalgamation of a number of different styles or methods to get the job done. I think that's what a lot of film acting is about. It's sort of a mongrel like approach these days. We use a number of different theories or beliefs to get you where you need to go. It's a personal experience. I don't believe in one particular system or method or another." - On his approach to acting.

"It was about six months of brutal training, twice a day at the gym, a Navy Seal guy would come over to my house and take me to the firing range, firing live rounds down the range, primary and secondary weapons. Learning edge weapons training, one man military incursions, hand to hand combat, Filipino martial arts as well as Israeli martial arts. It was brutal." - On his physical training for The Punisher (2004).

"When I played Mickey Mantle in 61* (2001) (TV). We were operating on a real high level. All the athletic training that we had to go through was something that you had to condition your body at a high level of athletic skill and we were playing baseball for three months. I was constantly getting injured, pulling muscles in my shoulder, muscles in my back, muscles in my groin, leg muscles. I was always having electric stimulation going at some point in my body. And the swings that we were taking were real. There's just a high amount of injury when you're playing a sport at that level".

I don't go to work to have fun. I turn up, say my lines, collect my check, and then go home to my wife and kid. I ain't there to stick around and laugh and cut up with people, and I ain't there to giggle and play jokes and pull people's underwear down and stuff.

There was a time when I just did [movies] to get the experience and training. Now I only do them because they are so good that I have no choice, and Stander was a prime example. I feel strongly that I shouldn't get involved with anything unless I'm 100 per cent committed. I don't need to go out and work so much. I just want to spend time with my kid. I am turning down as much crap as I can until I find something that really bowls me over.

I'm of the mind that life is a risk. Everytime you leave your house, it's a risk. I see no reason to go through life with my hands behind my back for any reason. It doesn't mean I'd be stupid or foolish but I wouldn't let anything stop me that I felt I could do. Risks are what make life a real thrill.

(on filming Stander)Three locations everyday. There were more locations than there were days of shooting. I had 17 costume changes and often multiple costume changes in one day of shooting. It was a lot of work for everybody. I knew that going in and I didn't want to do the movie. I think I turned it down twice. It seemed like so much work. But I'm learning that when I don't want to do something, it's usually a good sign that there's something in there that I need to do.

(on turning down - then accepting - his role in Stander) I just couldn't not do it. The price of not doing it was more than the price of doing it. The accent, embodying this other tortured individual, emotional roller coaster ride that he went on, he was a health nut and I had to work out, the shooting schedule, being half way around the world - everything just said don't do this fuckin movie. But I couldn't not do it - he was too strong.

(in 2004) The more well known I get, it seems the more limited my choices become. So I have to pick and choose and I have to pick a pigeon hole I'm comfortable in. The curse in being pigeon holed is getting stuck in something you really don't like. I had to find something I like and so w/the Punisher and Stander, I'm creating a niche for myself that I enjoy and I have something to contribute to whereas if I kept doing movies like The Sweetest Thing, I'd probably be flipping burgers by now.

I like broad comedies, hard core action, serious drama, science fiction, I love horror films. What draws me to them is their purity of vision that they are exactly what they say they are - that their a great embodiment of a horror film or a great drama. I guess that's what draws me to a film - the quality of a film.