Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When I was 18 and not sure whether I wanted to be an actor, I realised that a playwright has no voice without an actor. That's my reason for acting: to get that character as right as possible for my writer. And I have never changed my philosophy.
I've always felt toward the slightest scene, even if all I had to do in a scene was just to come in and say, 'Hi,' that the people ought to get their money's worth and that this is an obligation of mine, to give them the best you can get from me.
I was really into films when I was younger, but I feel like a bit of a phony sometimes - I started acting because I didn't know what else to do. I filled in all these university application forms and honestly didn't want to do any of the courses.
I don't want to sound hoity-toity, but people told me I should watch 'Cheers' because it's very funny. So I watched it, and I just went, 'This is the great show of the universe?' To me, acting is making characters believable, not just doing jokes.
I've been called a funny person, for a long time. I don't know that I know anything about comedic acting. I'm not a good improver, which is what a lot of comedic actors are really good at. I have failed miserably when I've been asked to improvise.
I don't know what its like for most actors, but really clearly for myself acting has always been the fulfillment of personal fantasies. It isn't just art, its about being a person I've always wanted to be, or being in a situation, or being a hero.
When you start off acting, it does seem very romantic, and the make-believe part of it all seems very exciting. It's only later that you begin to realize how fascinating the work is - that it's a bottomless pit, and you never get to the end of it.
We don't have sources who are dissidents on other sources. Should they come forward, that would be a tricky situation for us, but we're presumably acting in such a way that people feel morally compelled to continue our mission, not to screw it up.
I have never reached certain levels of fame, like Lindsay Lohan did, or even Brittany Murphy. My career has always been this sort of even-keeled, steady existence. I was also raised by poets, and I've been doing poetry as long as I've been acting.
I actually grew up hearing this a lot: 'If you're an actor, you can only be an actor, and you have to just do that.' But in order to be a good actor, you have to draw on life experiences. To only concentrate on acting, you're cutting yourself off.
I don't like to plan. Very often, for me, acting is like loving; it's using the muscle that you use in loving, in that your heart feels open. Physically, you feel open. And so therefore your job is to enter, open, and listen. And see what happens.
I can't become another person, no matter how much makeup I wear. Something of your own past, your experiences and personality always comes out in the role, and that makes acting very risky. You're exposed. You always wonder if you can pull it off.
Acting is so much about waiting... waiting for an audition, waiting for the right part to come along. It's nice to write your own thing, write about what you're feeling and then go out and perform them. It's a nice thing to have and not get bored.
I'm interested in acting as much as I'm interested in gardening. I want to garden, eventually. I want to learn how to do a lot of things. I've always wanted to learn how to paint, too. I'd like to try everything, but music is my reason for living.
The inner life of the [imagination], and not the personal and tiny experiential resources of the actor, should be elaborated on the stage and shown to the audience. This life is rich and revealing for the audience as well as for the actor himself.
Confidence sells -- people believe in those who believe in themselves. No one wants to be stuck in a room with other people who feel like they don't deserve to be there. Stop wondering if you're good enough. Know you are, and start acting like it.
I'm a very competitive person. I always have been. And it's hard to be competitive about something as amorphous as acting. But you can be competitive on the track, because the rules are very simple and the declaration of the winner is very concise.
In 1998, the acting roles suddenly bottomed out. I was no longer getting scripts; even my agent stopped calling. When I finally got him on the phone to ask him what was going on, he paused, then said: 'Well, Christine, you're 45.' I got rid of him.
On student films, everyone is pitching in to do everything, and I never felt like I was a part of a group before I started acting. I always felt like I had friends in this group and I had friends in that group, but I never felt like I had my group.
I have no ambitions at all! I have none... seriously. I want to be a good father. I want to be a good husband. I want to be a good son, a good brother, a good family member. I don't have any ambition to direct a film or write a play. I like acting.
I know it sounds earnest, but I do really feel in my bones that acting is just a small part of the equation when you are making a movie. The director really is in charge. Actors are as important or unimportant as the rest of the people around them.
I started acting when I was 13, but it really wasn't my plan. The actual decision to become an actor was when I was 17, after I didn't act for half a year because I came to an exchange student program in the US, and I realized how much I missed it.
I wanted to do serious movies. I had a certain idea of what good acting was. That's since changed, and I love doing comedies now. I don't like a lot of those movies now, but I thought those were movies that I could do real, serious performances in.
I consider myself fortunate that in my home, acting or the creative arts were a good option. This was a respected tour of duty in my family. Acting wasn't something that was left to tragic bohemians. But we weren't a family that obsessed on cinema.
Acting was something I always wanted to try. I just didn't know how, or I didn't know when the door was gonna be open for me to try it. But it finally opened up for me when I did 'Turn It Up', and ever since then I've been in love with doing films.
When I graduated from high school, my mom and dad were saying I needed to go to college, but I said I wanted to pursue my dream of acting. At the end of my high school career, they quit their jobs, and we moved out to California on a leap of faith.
My mom is actually a former prima ballerina, and all the women in my family are associated either with dance or choreography or acting, so I'm very lucky in a way because I grew up in a family of artists. I've been dancing since I was a little kid.
In effect the people were present through their representatives, and were themselves, step by step and point by point, acting in the conduct of public affairs. No longer merely an ultimate check on government, they were in some sense the government.
You can take lessons to become almost anything: flying lessons, piano lessons, skydiving lessons, acting lessons, race car driving lessons, singing lessons. But there's no class for comedy. You have to be born with it. God has to give you this gift.
We went through this month camp, learning how to bump and hit the ropes. I just fell in love with WWE and sports entertainment. It was the perfect world of the merge in sports, action, acting, and entertainment. I felt like I finally found my place.
My uncles are always busy away acting, so I barely even see them much at all, but I always know that they are so supportive. Anytime I do see them, they always check up on it and make sure everything's okay and let me know that they're there for me.
We are loping sequences of chemical conversions, acting ourselves converted. We are twists of genes acting ourselves twisted; we are wicks of burning neuroses acting ourselves wicked. And nothing to be done about it. And nothing to be done about it.
A lot of the time I hate acting. It has a lot to do with the way I was brought up in a world where showing your emotions is frowned upon. It's just not manly. I don't do anything in life because I love doing it. It's because I want to be good at it.
I started acting when I moved to California when I was nineteen. I started auditioning. I was waiting on my manager at the time. I was waiting on her table, and she sent me on an audition. From there, I just kept auditioning and, luckily, got parts.
Since I first started acting, I never separated a character's sexuality from what they eat for breakfast. I just think it's sort of silly. If I can be a part of helping to overcome that puritanical thing in our culture, so be it. I'm happy about it.
I really enjoyed it - being involved in watching rushes and playback [in "The Invisible Woman"]. Ralph [Fiennes] was very open to my input, I think knowing that he couldn't always be there 100 percent, that he had dual aims with directing and acting.
Acting is acting, and who you are will still remain to be who you are. You know, that part won't change it. It will change your wallet, you know? It'll change your life. It will open opportunities for you, but it's not going to change your character.
In the acting world, you can really only become good by practicing and doing it, and I just think every time you walk onto a set you just become better and better. I think I'm in a totally different space than I was back then on that first movie set.
Acting is something that I always wanted, but I never paid attention to the notion that it might actually work out. You have all sorts of ideas about what you want to do - at one stage, I wanted to be a jockey - but this is the one that's a big deal.
Most of my training at graduate school was geared towards drama, so I feel good about it, and I can do it, but it requires a lot more work from me. I feel like with drama... well, with all acting, really, you need to honor the truth of the situation.
I love the art of acting, and I love film, because you always have anther chance if you want it. You know, if we - if this isn't going well, you can't say - well, you could say - let's stop. Let's start over again, Gene, because you were too nervous.
Our parents more or less just kind of wanted us to pursue our passions. Whatever they would have been, they would have helped light the fire. They are very liberal, artistic people, but they didn't force us into acting. They let us find our own ways.
To separate journalism and poetry, therefore-history and poetry-to set them up at opposite ends of the world of discourse, is to separate seeing from the feel of seeing, emotion from the acting of emotion, knowledge from the realization of knowledge.
The urge to act became the overriding force in my life. It thrilled me. There's a moment with acting when you're in the groove, and you and what you're trying to do are seamlessly one. That happens sometimes, and I'm really happy it can happen to me.
I can't imagine being a woman in the world of acting, like where you age starts to weigh you down - you go from being attractive to where they [directors] decided you're out... I feel like with stand-up comedy, it doesn't matter if I've gotten fatter.
What's totally terrifying is that, unlike a musician who has a musical instrument, or a painter that's got a canvas and a brush, acting is us. Our energy, our soul, our spirits. And it's so hard because it's so vulnerable. You're exposing everything.
I always felt like I needed to act. Not that I wanted to act, but I needed to. And I still feel that same way. There's an expression that I get to have in acting that I can't consciously express in my life. It has always defined me and it always will.
I feel like you have to pull from some personal experiences [to acting]. At least that's how I work sometimes. It's just easier that way. And I try it as best as I can and kind of dissolve myself and become a character, not me, or just blur the lines.
I've been spending quite a bit of time writing, acting, and making films. Because I'm doing all this extra writing, acting, and creating short comedy skits with my friends in improv shows, I feel like that's really filled out my confidence on the mic.
If you're a theater director, you're not going to be prepared for the technical side. And if you're a technical director, you're not going to be prepared for the acting side. The only thing you can do is go through the meat grinder of your first film.