Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I am a great admirer of other actors, but I never compete with other actors. I always compete with what I did last, and I'm my own most vicious critic. So I'm always trying to do it better.
There's nothing more exciting for an actor than a chance to lose, to be someone who has lost - especially if it's someone who starts off with a veneer of control. To be broken is wonderful.
Eventually, in '84, we made a film for a little over a million dollars - with American actors that was shot in English - that was shown in Finland A little action film called Born American.
As far as being an actor is concerned, you have to have passion. If you're not bringing the passion of the character into the room with you, you might as well not come into the room at all.
Forget the credit, they (male actors) take all the money as well. We don't get paid even one-third of what male actors get. It's not so much about the money, but it's about (being a) woman.
I think the toughest thing for me to figure out, as an actor, was how to translate all those layers that are in there and that history that the writers have done such a great job at forming.
Every single Pixar film, at one time or another, has been the worst movie ever put on film. But we know. We trust our process. We don't get scared and say, 'Oh, no, this film isn't working.'
Sometimes you look at a movie and you can see that the actor or actress said, 'I'm taking this onboard because I'm making a ton of money, and not because it's going to be something special.'
When I write a play, my whole intent at bottom is to get the audience to be in the cast, to get that audience on stage with the actors and to get them thoroughly involved in what's going on.
In comedy, beware the split focus. The audience should focus on the face of the actor. The audience must see the setup. If there is action elsewhere on the stage, the comic line can be lost.
Ok so there's no TV shows, no movies going on fine, but I love going on stage and performing stand up so my situation is a little better than someone who's strictly just an actor or actress.
The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn't directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.
I love working with older actors because number one, I can learn so much from them because they have so much experience. And it's fun to hear their stories from their era, some of the jokes.
People imagine that actors are being offered everything and you are not. So things come in and sometimes there are things that I want and can't get a meeting on, or go to a different actors.
I grew up watching American movies. My favorite movies have always been American, since as long as I can remember. I always had this huge respect for American filmmakers and American actors.
There are some actors that are so gifted, that move you in such a way that every time you see their names again, you go and pay another ticket because you want to have that experience again.
Such is an actor's life. We must ride the waves of every film, barfing occasionally, yet maintain our dignity, even as the bulk of our Herculean efforts are keel-hauled before our very eyes.
Actors want to work with you but they want you to do their thing. Actors, whom I love with a blind partiality, sometimes they want to be soloists in the symphony, not a part of the orchestra.
They didn't act like people and they didn't act like actors. It's hard to explain. They acted more like they knew they were celebrities and all. I mean they were good, but they were too good.
Even in the tragedies, [William] Shakespeare always put in parts for the comic actors because his audience was mixed. He puts in people who talk like aristocrats. He puts in idiots and fools.
I always wanted to be an actor and I'd never dreamt that not only would I be able to do this for a living, but also on top of that I'd be able to choose and steer the course of my own career.
Every time something bad happens, like we lose a day because of weather or an actor gets injured or anything else happens, the schedule has to change. It's the most challenging Tetris puzzle.
It makes me proud, and it makes me scared. More than anything, I want to be an actor and I want to keep working, and I think there's a danger in being perceived as a poster boy for something.
I've worked with actors who treat the first two takes like rehearsals. And that's okay. If the camera is on you and we're doing a scene where I'm off camera, I'm treating that as a rehearsal.
My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.
As an actor, I like as much time with the material as possible and given the opportunity, time spent with the other actors in the scene. But that is a rare luxury in working in any TV series.
I'm an actor, and I don't look at myself as providing comic relief. I have done diverse and dark roles such as a psycho, murderer, and others in films such as 'Don', 'Eklavya' and '3 Idiots.'
The best type of government comes from a government that is scrutinized by the people when they have true information about our governments, major corporations, other power actors in society.
Actors get pigeonholed very quickly, particularly movie actors. In the theater, one is more used to casting people against type and trusting that their talent and skill will get them through.
I imagine it was much different in the 1970s. That was the Renaissance for black actors, albeit in blaxploitation movies. There was a much greater preponderance of work then than there is now.
Wanting to be in a Western film won't get me very far. Unless the opportunity arose, it doesn't matter how much I want to be in one. But if an opportunity did arise, no actor would pass it up.
I love having played Walter because I suppose any actor brings a certain aspect of their own personality to their work, and I had a fairly broad canvas to paint on with the different versions.
I enjoy being an actor largely; in part at least, because you get to walk a mile in another person's shoes, you get to see what their skin is like. The other good thing is you get to leave it.
I never thought of myself as a comedic actor. I didn't go to Second City, that's not my background, I'm not a comic, I studied theater and my career when I started was a lot of dramatic stuff.
I suppose actors crave attention of some kind or they have suffered some form of arrested development and are still living in a sort of child's fantasy existence at some level in their psyche.
Nothing else is as fulfilling as playing a part in which you are able to have a significant say in the creative process all the way through. How many actors get to do that? It's extremely rare.
I was very sad to hear of the death of Ronnie Barker, who was such a warm, friendly and encouraging presence to have when I started in television. He was also a great comic actor to learn from.
I do like taking on responsibility, sometimes too much. But I was aware of that early on and it's something that came up in the previous set of interviews, and that is the actor‛s contribution.
Usually I like to make my movies from start to finish in chronological order. As a filmmaker it lets me be able to direct my actors and tell them where exactly they are and go with progression.
In terms of cinema and filmmaking, there are certainly the unexpected gifts that the actors bestow on you. Film is always a question of compromises with respect to what you originally intended.
It's only human and natural that an actor should see the film in terms of his own part, but I, as a director, have to see the film as a whole. He must therefore collaborate selflessly, totally.
I've always been spontaneous and outgoing... I've tried lots of things so I've got some good life experiences, which is great 'cause it means I've got lots of material to work with as an actor.
A lot of times, actors and directors don't want to repeat something. I don't think we're repeating something, but I think there's certainly a genre that we're in, and we're happy to embrace it.
What actors are good at doing is walking into a situation that should make you incredibly self-conscious and frightened and doing it anyway. That's the gig, pretending that you are comfortable.
As an actor, often you're stuck with these scenes in which a great period of time is in between them - for example, if you do a biopic, it might be a year, it might be a decade, you never know.
My height can be a problem. A lot of directors and photographers are sometimes not happy because I'm pretty tall and especially if I work with short actors the difference can be pretty massive.
I found American actors quite scary because they're brilliant actors and brilliantly funny, and they never stopped once you wound them up... off they went and they just deliver fantastic stuff.
It's always hard as an actor I think to be just on the set and have the kind of confidence to be like, 'Yeah, I did that. That went perfectly. That's great.' That's more confidence than I have.
All my characters are me. I'm not a good enough actor to become a character. I hear about actors who become the role and I think 'I wonder what that feels like.' Because for me, they're all me.
An actor cannot say no, it’s against his job. If he wants the part he has to say yes. [But] it’s very bad for you to say you can do something and then not do it, so you have to manage to do it.