Quotes About Acting

I like acting for myself as a director. I act and I know that I'll have a chance to have some say in what gets used and that I'll be able to give myself enough takes and be on the same page as myself about how the scene should play.

You have to examine a scene on the page first. Then you get into the basics of acting: Who are you? Who are you talking to? How do you feel about that person?

Sometimes when you write something on the page, it can seem very funny, but when you act it out - and this happens to me a lot, actually - the melancholy of the situation becomes more front and center.

I'd been auditioning for parts for years. I never got any better at it. I'm crap at auditions. I know there are people who can walk into those rooms and make those lines sing on the page and get the job immediately. I wasn't one of them. I'm still not one of them.

I think if an actor is right for a role, casting sees that, and the words that are on the page, depending on how it's written, can really help your character develop.

Whether it is television or film, the character on the page has to speak to me.

Sometimes I take a movie that I know is not great; it's not great on the page, but I need to work. Sometimes I need to make the money. I need dough. I want to work, and so I'll take something that is compromised in some arena. But it's like, actors gotta act.

I do get approached every day by people who say, 'Why don't you make more movies?' I don't really miss it when I get to go and watch my daughter in the Christmas pageant.

After 30 years in the theater, I'm used to having a great amount of control over what I do. But with '24', you place your character's life in the writers' hands, and you have no idea what's going to happen until you're sent the next pages.

I have to learn sometimes 25 pages at a time. The takes can last 20 minutes - we do big, long takes. You always hope that you get a couple of days in between so you can learn the next one because you can't keep everything in your head at the one time.

If a scene is three pages long, quite often people break it up and do a page, say 'cut' then move on to the next bit, they do it in cuts. I don't really like doing that; I like to go through it all in one organic run, then give notes afterward. A little bit more like theater.

Mini-series are my favorite medium to act in because it's the right amount of pages you shoot a day, it's the right amount of time that you're with a character, and they really advertise it a lot so that people get excited for this epic event.

On my last two days of 'Young and the Restless,' I had 120-something pages of dialogue. My last two days.

I want to keep continuously going through all the pages in the book of being an actor.

When I was really young, I used to lie a lot. Now I get paid to do it.

I would act whether or not I was paid. I would be involved in ensemble groups. I would have the desire to tell stories.

I don't like to cry in public, unless I'm getting paid for it.

In between, I go broke because I seem to do movies where you're not paid a lot as an actor.

My first paid acting job was a movie called Fandango. It also starred Kevin Costner.

I did not get Botox because you wouldn't see any expression in my face. Hopefully it has paid off.

I've only half-admitted I'm a professional. I know I am, I've paid my dues, but one of the things I could do better when I'm acting is to really be rigorous and to think I know how to do it. To use my brain.

I think I was probably always a liar; I just get paid for it now.

I've been drawing since I was a little kid, but it's not something I love to do every day. If there's one thing I love to do every day, it'd probably be acting. I can act every day. I'd happily do it, you don't have to pay me. But that's one thing I'd love to do and get paid for.

I have two concerns with my work: having good things to act, and getting paid. In that order. Although if you're not getting paid well, that order can change. But that's what I'm concerned about. Good scenes. Decent money.