Quotes About Acting

I want to be a good actress, I want to be a good person, and I want to play baseball.

For me, I need to listen to music in the morning, and after, it's kind of like a shower, you know what I mean? It's kind of getting rid of everything. I always play music after I act. It's not a conscious thing, like, 'Oh finally, I need to do this,' it's kind of a constant need.

I look like a duck. It's the way my mouth curls up, or my nose tilts up. I should have played Howard the Duck.

I played Mary at the age of seven in my first nativity play, and I loved it - there is something so fascinating about embodying someone else.

I played Hamlet, I played Chekhov and Ibsen and all the classics.

I played Othello at RADA - blacked up. I didn't know it was going to be offensive now!

I have always played the cheerful girl next door, especially on the Internet, and this film is a break from that. My character is more moody and bratty in 'Karwaan.'

I would have played any character in an Alexander Payne movie.

I'm essentially the result of other people's imagination. And that's fine. Because of other people's imagination, I've played parts I would never have thought I could do. Still, I've never had a hankering or an ambition for any particular role.

I used to see movies where they'd put on a play in a barn, but I've never played one.

Each role that I've played has had a piece of a dream role in it.

I've never played someone where I felt it was beneficial to build from the outside in.

I don't know anything about being a royal child. But I have played Shakespearian kings.

Anyone can play Henry VIII. I mean, even Robert Shaw... has played it.

Forney in 'Where the Heart Is' has more fans than any other character I've played.

It's not that I'm a serious person; I'm playful and stuff like that, but I take characters very seriously and the work very seriously.

I like a director who is very observant and is watching what I'm doing and noticing what I'm doing but is giving me time to figure it out. They don't jump right in and give you a note before you've had time to really search on your own with how to do a scene. I like a director that encourages me to be playful.

I love acting. It's my playground; it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting. My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind.

The really best acting is children in a playground or in a backyard. They're just lost in their imagination. The backyard isn't a pirate ship or a jungle, in the same way that the soundstage isn't Shambala.

Theatre is really an actor's playground.

I was acting when I was playing baseball.

I see myself as a character actor, and I've always been drawn to playing characters that are different from myself because acting is escapism for me. I've never been that comfortable playing people that are like me.

I had played the Virgin Mary in 'Jesus of Nazareth,' and I had done 'Juliet' at the age of 15. People said, 'Where do you go from playing Juliet and the Virgin Mary?' And I said, 'Mother Teresa of Calcutta.'

When you're performing, you're playing to the back row. With acting, you have to be more nuanced.