Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm an infant with Shakespeare; I'm kind of learning how to walk. I am trying to decipher the code, you know? I do my research. And I get a clear understanding of what the language is. It is a tremendous process I have to go through as I am sure all actors do, finding the gems hidden in his language.
There are etiquette things that actors, new actors, need to know about. Because it only takes one mess-up on a set to get fired. Not being where you're supposed to be or saying something to the wrong person that you're not supposed to say, and those are like basic things that the actors need to know.
How much do you have to pay someone to be in a George Clooney/Alexander Payne film? NOTHING!! Because everyone in the world wants to be a part of it. Therefore you pay nothing. And that continues until you become something they need... I'm not that kind of actor. I'm blue collar and very replaceable.
It certainly helps, I think, with some actors to understand the process of acting. You see what extraordinary pressure they're under, there's a huge circus dedicated to a particular moment and they're got to deliver and it can help that you, even if empathetically alone, understand what they're doing.
There was no actually stock footage in "Medium Cool." I wrote the script. I wrote the riots. And I integrated the actors in the film in the park during the demonstrations. But nowhere was it like we had stock footage and then later, in editing, integrated it into the film. It was all done at the time.
I love my situation as a spectator. The actors are only a little bit ahead of the audience. The audience discovers the episode when it's screened, but we actors only discover the episode when we get the script, two weeks ahead of shooting. Until then, we know nothing of the evolution of our characters.
My father was brought up in an orphanage in the Catskills. He was a factory worker. And because his family wasn't there for him, family was everything. We could disagree inside the house, but outside the house it was us against the world. So when I became a drag actor, he looked sideways but said okay.
I've just done a movie - Albino Alligator - with Viggo Mortensen, who's an actor I idolize. He influenced me in a way that has helped me move toward getting lead parts instead of supporting parts, merely through his presence. So now I tell everyone, as a joke, that I'm entering my Viggo Mortensen phase.
I remember seeing Aladdin when I was five or six and loving it. I looked at the big screen and said to my mum, Whatever this Genie guy does, I want to do. Mum said I couldnt be a genie, but that Robin Williams, who did the voice-over in the film, was an actor. So I said, OK, then, I want to be an actor.
The TV schedule is fantastic. It allows you to have a life. Theater actors are so disciplined - especially if you're doing musicals, you have to be in shape physically, mentally, and have to be on your game all the time. That's exhausting. On TV, especially a sitcom, you have a lot of free time to play.
I'm very much into the costuming of any character that I portray and it's one of the great things about making movies is it's a collaborative art form so you get all these artists who are looking specifically about for this instance your character's costume and what that might tell about your character.
There's a myth about actors saying, 'Oh no, that's not me on screen at all. I'm just acting.' OK, if I were to say to you that's not me, that's fine. And I would tell you that I don't behave like a villain everyday, and that's true, I don't. But to say there's absolutely none of me in there is ridiculous.
All of my favourite actors are American and I grew up watching American movies. It's weird, but I used to do a New Jersey accent in every audition in the States just because I liked to do it, really. It's completely bizarre. Everybody would ask: 'Where are you from?' And I would say, 'Oh, I'm from London.'
I've always thought that when anyone receives an award for acting they should always thank their fellow actors, because the only way you're going to deliver your best performance is when you have other good actors on the set supporting you and being very present for you even when the camera is not on them.
Film has to be reflecting the world that we live in, and that's all you want to be a part of. Actors inhabit the same planet as everyone else. It's a weird thing that happens when you're an actor because people hold you up because you somehow embody in parts groups of people or people's hopes or something.
We're all pretty proud of it, and we're also standing around, scratching our heads and going, "Wow, this is really good." With the caliber of actors that we have, you really can't got wrong. Not only is it fun, but it's good. It's been really, really great, in that aspect. I totally get what they're doing.
I was very familiar with both actors, as well as Christina Hendricks and Bill Sage, Jimmi Simpson, Polly McIntosh, but the other main actors were new to me. And they were all terrific. Just amazing. Actually, Lowell Northrop optioned Savage Season from me, first book in the series, and I wrote a screenplay.
Where possible, if there's something that is highly likely to kill you, the studios won't insure us to do [the stunts]. But where we are insurable, Len likes to make us do that. He likes to see actors' faces and have everybody know that that is them doing it. Yeah, I definitely got some bruises on this one.
[Denzel Washington] was rustling with something and when he came back it was with a word about loving myself and the body that I'm in because I was still going on and on about the weight thing. I just liked that, because what people don't understand is that so much of what blocks us as actors is so personal.
There is nothing worse than when actors come to a set - and it happens a lot with big stars - and they are too aware of where the camera is. They are the show. And that becomes apparent and it affects the production. I am like 'You should not know where the camera is - you should act, and I will do the rest.'
There is no single approach that actors take to their craft. And the best thing you learn is that you have to really listen and respect each actor's own process and own method, and that takes a kind of delicate, non-imposing patience and openness, I think, to get the very best out of the people you work with.
I would love to work with Ron Howard. I think he is brilliant. I love the stories that he chooses. Theyre always very personal and intense. He loves a lot of emotion, and hes so well equipped to pull all of that out of the actors. I really love that kind of thing and I think thats what movies should be about.
Tunstell, this is your Alpha speaking. Do as I tell you. You must regurgitate now. Regurgitation is an involuntary action. You cannot simply order me to do it,” replied Tunstell in a small voice. “I most certainly can. Besides which, you are an actor.” Tunstell grimaced. “I’ve never had cause to vomit onstage.
One of the reasons I moved away from painting was because I eventually discovered that I wanted to deal more with motion, time, and performance - and that became a much bigger part of my life both as an actor and as a musician and someone who goes on stage and travels around the world and works on productions.
Everybody's on their toes and focused on what we're about to do, and then there's this moment where you relax because you see that everybody is there to do the best that they can. Everyone opens up to one another right away. That's a terrific thing. I love that about actors. They know how personal this job is.
This whole celebrity racket, it's not really my bag. I don't really do that stuff, and I am not looking to get famous myself. I would love it if my characters get famous, my work was well known and appreciated. But I'm an actor, not a spokes model or a celebrity or whatever that is. I don't know how to be that.
There are very few persons who would think of inquiring into the private life of the newspaper dealer at the corner, or the druggist, or the doctor, or even a Mah Jong partner, but the moment one belongs to the theatrical profession, the public usually feels cheated unless it knows one's inmost thoughts of love.
I'd prefer not to act in the film I'm directing. I think, though, as an actor, you do learn how to turn things on and off quickly and kind of compartmentalize. You learn to accommodate the camera and the other actors, to notice where the boom is and where you mark is, and be able to repeat something a few times.
I grew up with it. As a young actor, I was always aware of the brilliant work of Shakespeare. We studied Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth in school. As a young actor, you're always mystified and intrigued by such brilliant work. To actually have the chance to be involved in this production was a wonderful thing for me.
I wasn't really that good at being a musician. And then I tried being a standup. I was an actor. I was a photographer. I tried everything. Nothing was particularly working for me, but then, as a musician, I wrote jokes for comics. And they started to buy my jokes, and that's where I thought maybe that might work.
When I was a young actress, I was called in just to do my part, and I didn't have any say or weight as far as any decisions go. But today, having worked as a producer and also having lived a little, I feel like I've found my voice more. I'm sure that it has influenced me as an actor and it will continue to do so.
Ive always loved the power of stories to transport me to another world, to imagine extraordinary possibilities, to experience things I may not have access to in my regular life - like being a superhero! Also, I would always put on shows for my family and the neighbors; I guess I was an actor before I even knew it.
English actors feel vaguely apologetic for being there at all. American actors know that the most important thing is to get one take out of fifty that is great, and they'll go to any length to get it. The English are used to working within consistently small, low-budget things and think, I mustn't waste their time.
I've got to find a compromise where I don't feel compromised. I've got to find something equally good that they don't feel uncomfortable with. At a certain point, it's no longer about what I thought was right, but it's about this new discovery that happens with the actors. It's nice when the actor is also a writer.
We are not what we seem. We are more than what we seem. The actor knows that. And because the actor knows that hidden inside himself there's a wizard and a king, he also knows that when he's playing himself in his daily life, he's playing a part, he's performing, just as he's performing when he plays a part on stage.
If the helplessness and isolation of labour, who have nothing to sell but their labour, can be totally removed by connecting labour with capital through a universal credit system, we'll then have other kinds of actors on the economic scene different from what the existing capitalist world would allow us to bring out.
I think all actors want to change. When you do something many times, over and over, you want to do something fresh. But movie is still my business. A lot of action actors want change, but no studio wants to spend money on something that is not guaranteed; not proven. I think it is very difficult. It is hard to change.
I want you to understand the words. I want you taste the words. I want you to love the words. Because the words are important. But they're only words. You leave them on the paper and you take the thoughts and put them into your mind and then you as an actor recreate them, as if the thoughts had suddenly occurred to you.
You never know when you're taking a job, ever... but you try to take good scripts. That's all you can do as an actor - take the best thing available. Even then, it's not [really] in your control. Certainly not in film and TV, because there are so many other elements. You just have to take control of your own performance.
I felt a certain modicum of success because I had been paid well to be an actor for the first time in my life, but I felt like I had done adolescent work on the show, and stepping into the New York theater arena was the first time I felt like I'd come into my own. I felt like I was proving myself in a gladiatorial arena.
When somebody who makes movies for a living - either as an actor, writer, producer or director - lives to be a certain age, you have to admire them. It is an act of courage to make a film - a courage for which you are not prepared in the rest of life. It is very hard and very destructive. But we do it because we love it.
It's difficult because you can't generalise about these things. But in essence, you deal with children as simply as you deal with actors - you have to show a certain sort of respect. You deal with them lovingly and protect them, but if you protect them enough then they're open to engage with what you want to do with them.
Sometimes, you run into trouble as an actor when you're not working with someone who is collaborative or doesn't bring themselves to the piece, and you sort of have to start worrying about yourself and protecting what works for you in the scene. I never had to do that in this movie because it was sort of this trapeze act.
To work with Richard [Ayoade] is my favourite thing in the world. He is my favourite person. So, it was great for me to be involved in a project that was, again, so different and with such wonderful actors. Everyone from Submarine is in the film in one way or another, which helps because it really does feel like a family.
I invite the entire spectrum, shall we call it, of feeling. Because that is my greatest resource as a film actor. I need to be able to feel everything, which is why I refuse to go on any kind of medication. Not that I need to! But my point is, I wouldn't even explore that, because it would get in the way of my instrument.
But I've always felt that the less you know about an actor's personal life, the more you can get involved in the story in which he's playing a character. And I don't like to see movies where you know about everything that happens behind the scenes. I can't engage in the story if I know what's going on in the actor's head.
3D movie is tedious, its tedious for everybody, it's hard for the crew, it's hard for the actors. It adds more time. It's more technically complicated, so that just adds more time and takes a little more time away from he acting and that's kind of frustrating but to say "I'll never do 3D again" that doesn't make any sense.
There is this thing called Actors Access, which is run by the breakdown services. What they do is they put up casting notices that are available to everyone. Because there's thousands and thousands of actors and there are student films and grad student films and, sometimes, some small independent projects that are on there.
It's not uncommon to hear people say that the re-entry into their lives is very hard. A lot of actors say that the hardest thing about working is not working, because you go from one of the most structured environments in the world to a place of no structure. Maybe that's why you see someone go from movie to movie to movie.
People always said, "I can't believe you made a movie that had no script." Yeah, but here's the thing, if you've got actors who are used to that, and that's what they like to do, they're all good improvisers and they're all people that feel comfortable doing that, then you know, it's not that big of a deal. It's what you do.