Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I consider it an actor going to work with other actors. It's not a competitive sport, it's not to outact anybody else, sorta thing, you can be a bad actor but you don't outact anybody, you just bring your character as best as you can.
My nominee for Best Picture of the year - maybe the best picture ever, because it's essentially made up of and is an ecstatic love letter to all other movies - is Christian Marclay's endlessly enticing must-see masterpiece 'The Clock.'
I personally take cues directly from the script, then I like to surprise the other actors. But you must maintain control on a level and see how far you can go up, down or out emotionally. You have to balance the craft with spontaneity.
Acting is being susceptible to what is around you, and it's letting it all come in. Acting is a clearing away of everything except what you want and need - and it's wonderful in that way. And when it's right, you're lost in the moment.
It seems to me that everybody who's a success has made a decision to put themselves in a situation that eats away at their privacy. Their hours just don't end. Now, with actors it's extreme, because their privacy is almost nonexistent.
If I spent all my time criticising myself, I wouldn't be able to function. There are actors who theorise till the cows come home. I haven't the patience for them. It's maybe shallow, but that's why I'll never be part of the acting set.
The world has obviously changed in terms of the way filmmakers and actors and writers often look at their own careers. They all seem to want to include in their own process - along with some of their iconic and franchise-driven movies.
Through this experience [of makimg movies], I recognized what an extraordinary set of personality traits it takes to be able to succeed in that world, and I was really drawn to the character work we could build with actors as a result.
Writers, actors, anybody working on an ensemble-type thing, there are going to be some creaks in the beginning. It seems like there's tremendous potential in just letting things sort of breathe a little bit. It's tremendously important.
I'm easily starstruck. Seeing Buster Posey or any actor, anyone at a restaurant, for me I get really starstruck, so just trying to calm myself down and say, "This is where I belong. This is what I've prepared my whole life to be doing."
You know, the great thing about acting or, indeed, filmmaking in general, is that we're all given a reason to do research. You kind of have to, really, if you want to know what you're doing, but it opens up this whole new understanding.
Comedy is serious - deadly serious. Never, never try to be funny! The actors must be serious. Only the situation must be absurd. Funny is in the writing, not in the performing. If the situation isn't absurd, no amount of joke will help.
Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs and bring about my interpretation of them.
In terms of directors, great actors make directors - Gary Oldman was great to work with, for me; Tim Roth, too. You work with Scorsese and Spielberg and they were wonderful directors, but for me, working with actor/directors is special.
I love both [Johnny English and James Bond] actually. The action sequences are really exciting because you're getting to work with some brilliant crew and do some great stuff but you always get some magic when you're working with actors.
I'm less confident now than I've ever been. In this peculiar craft, confidence is something you spend a lifetime losing. I used to be frightened only one night a week but now I'm frightened of every performance. I mean really frightened.
I certainly direct with confidence even if I'm not confident. I learned early on as an actor that confidence can be faked, and it's not always a terrible thing to do. A lot of times if people feel you're confident, then they're confident.
It doesn't matter if you work with an Oscar winner or if you work with an unknown actor. There is always a collaboration between the director and the actors, and you always have to listen as the actors have to listen to you as a director.
[As an actor] you're looking to crawl into an anonymous fictional person's skin, but then you have the ironic obligation to promoting the movie in such a public way that it almost undermines the initial intention of going under the radar.
You have a great road map when you play somebody that exists. That's the amazing thing. But then you have great limitations from that road map. It's hard to deviate from it creatively as an actor. It's like, "Oh wait, he'd never do that."
Sometimes it depends on the actor or the actress. Sometimes they demand a lot of rehearsals. Sometimes they don't. Making movies is not like making a play, so I guess you can leave some of the work for improvisation when they do the work.
You know, making an animated movie is such a lonesome thing. You mostly don't see your fellow actors or anything. You go into your booth, you record all your dialogue. It's very much an issue of trust. You leave it all up to the director.
I'm a comedic actor, not to mix words, but it's something I think about. A comedic actor. I like to think that Christopher Guest, Phil Hartman, Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness are comedic actors. And Dan Aykroyd, too. Those are my heroes.
If painters left nothing of themselves after their deaths, so that we were obliged to rank them as we do actors according to the judgment of their contemporaries, how different their reputations would be from what posterity has made them!
I've been lucky enough - well, maybe unlucky enough - to have had a lot of friends who have had their ups and downs. And for an actor, that's good. Life experience in any regard is good. So I've seen a lot and I've had my own experiences.
As a movie actor, once you've become known, you're observed all the time so you don't get the chance to observe anymore. You still get a taste of life but it's not quite the same and there's something to be said for a more anonymous life.
You don't often get a chance to record with the other actors who are playing the characters, mainly due to the fact that you don't have to, the actors' schedules are all over the place, and it's difficult to get everyone in the same room.
I've actually usually been wary of taking on science fiction as an actor because it's really tough to do. It's really difficult to execute. There's often lots of prosthetics, green screen and special effects, and it can get very technical.
I became an actor, and because I had success as an actor, I became famous. I was acting for quite a while before I got famous; television made me famous. I guess that it's television that is responsible for everybody's desire to be famous.
I got the regular call, that they were doing a Broadway musical of Hairspray, and would I come and audition. I was familiar with the movie, because at the time it came out my lover wrote for Premiere magazine, and we had to see everything.
You have to find it in the moment, and that's one of the challenges of being an actor - especially a film actor - is that you have to maintain these heightened emotions for long periods of time. There's no trick to it. You just have to do.
The actors are in control, getting outrageous amounts of money. The reason they're getting this kind of money is because the studios don't know what else to do. They don't have a clue about what to do except to pay an actor a lot of money.
Somewhere in talking and rehearsing, there is a magical moment where actors catch a current, they're on the right road. If they really catch it, then whatever they do from then on is correct and it all comes out of them from that point on.
It's about storytelling. The story is told through images. So with the cast, I had to make sure that the emotions were readable without sound... I know some great actors, if you turn off the sound, you don't really know what they're saying
I started acting when I was about nine. I always wanted to get into acting since I was really little but my parents would never let me because they'd heard all the bad stuff about being in the business as a young actor and stuff like that.
I am very direct and I tend to treat everyone exactly the same, which sometimes gets me in trouble because some movie stars feel like they should be treated differently. But, when you're dealing with good actors, they really appreciate it.
A lot of the stuff you do as an actor - or I do, because I can't speak for everyone - is not always consciously thought out. A lot of the time, for me, it's actually just feeling stuff, and it happens all in the moment and your body reacts.
It was really really neat to make the movie because there were mentally challenged actors in the movie. So that was really really cool to work with them and they were always really happy, and they made everybody really happy on the set too.
Would you go to see a brilliant actor who's been framed for something that he didn't do, and put him on a stage and say he's going to do Hamlet for you, and why don't you enjoy it? That's a hell of an analogy, but it's about the same thing.
My primary instinct as an actor is not the big transformation. It's thrilling if a performer can do that well, but that's not me. Often with actors, it's a case of witnessing a big party piece but wondering afterwards, where's the substance?
Trust me, baby, you weren’t that good. I was just a better actress than you were actor. (Zephyra to Stryker) Ew! No offense, Mum, I don’t want to know who you’ve slept with. Kill the sexual bantering and him before I go deaf from it. (Medea)
When you look at the piece of paper, and there's just words on there, you interpret it as the actor to whatever you think is right. There may not be the hidden meaning behind the dialogue, because you don't really get to see what's going on.
For me, it was a wonderful surprise because I saw wonderful actors being very professional working in front of me [on Chicken with Plums]. I finally understood what an actor is and what an actor does. On a daily basis, it's a bit repetitive.
As an actor, I've learned to become a detective. You have to figure out who that person is. If the character is a thief, you have to figure out what makes them a thief. Whatever the prevailing idiosyncrasy is, I have to find it in the script.
You can be the best actor in the world, but if you don't have that one lucky moment, it kind of doesn't matter. There are a lot of amazing actors who will never get the chance to prove themselves because they won't have that one lucky moment.
As an actor there's a lot of scrutiny and, even when you've had success, it becomes about sustaining that success. A friend of mine described it as a peakless mountain. Even for Robert De Niro there's Al Pacino and for Pacino there's De Niro.
I wouldn't say I'm a very controlling person. For instance, when I talk to the actors, I don't tell them exactly what I want because I want them to surprise me. I even encourage them to change some of the verses of the script if they need to.
You want to work with good people. When you're working with good people, it frees you up. There's nothing worse, as an actor, to show up and then feel like you have to protect yourself somehow because you don't feel like you're in good hands.
When I shoot actors, I have that dilemma. I want the actor to be good, and sometimes I have to push them to a place that isn't pleasant. I always think: 'Is it worth doing for the sake of the movie?' But I have to remember the bigger picture.
I just felt that you can't have a character fall in love so madly as they did in the last movie and not finish it off, understand it, get some closure. That's why the movie is called 'Quantum of Solace' - that's exactly what he's looking for.