Quotes About Acting

As humans, we've all experienced some level of pain. Acting is just a matter of accessing and magnifying these emotions.

When I'm playing a character like Jonathan in Ripley's Game I want to be in the moment when he's feeling pain; this very ordinary person who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances.

Finally I had a place where I could express my pain and I felt safe because I didn't have to put my name on it. I think acting kept me alive back then.

Bruce Willis. Pain in my ass, no problem about that. We just didn't get along. We got along off camera, but shooting we just didn't get along.

Acting is the most demanding, painful job in the world.

I can't even read a script. I've tried and it's painful to watch.

My parents were both actors; my dad sort of quite early on. My mother acted for a while, and now she's a painter.

I never really considered acting as a career. I kind of fell into it. Originally, I wanted to be a painter.

At the end of the day, if you're an actor, you want to act. And it's not something you can do in the living room alone. If you're a painter, you can paint at home. If you write music, you can write on your own.

For me, acting is about the art of it and it's about being on a film set and doing your thing, painting a blank canvas.

I needed an outlet in high school and came across painting. I've actually been painting longer than I've been acting. A movie is a collaborative effort, and with painting you just have yourself.

When I'm painting and drawing I only do people. Acting is obviously portraiture - and writing is as well.

I always wear the shoes of the character a week before going on set; the idea of just putting on a new pair of shoes on the first day of filming is just horrific.

Luckily, I've had the chance to perform with some of the best actors in Pakistan, who helped me out a lot on set.

I loved my roles in 'Veer-Zaara,' 'Train To Pakistan' and 'Shaheed-e-Mohabbat.'

No one's of Pakistani origin in any British show. That's why every actor of color is here working in the States. It's true.

Doing theater, I call it concentrated shampoo. You put a dime in the palm of your hand and you get a headful of lather. When you do a play, you're there for two and a half hours, and you live a lifetime.

Sometimes I pick parts because I think, 'OK, it scares me,' and that's an indication it's going to be a good movie for me to do. Sometimes that leaves me in a terrible... Well, it doesn't always pan out, you know?

I want in 40 years to still be acting and to more than anything have longevity and not just be this huge flash in the pan and then disappear.

I was in musical comedy. And I did very well, but the memorization killed me. I'm not good at memorizing, and it gave me a lot of anxiety. I hated the makeup. I hated all that pancake makeup. I didn't really like dressing for parts.

I can't worry about whether roles will be there for me when I'm older. They're there now, and I'm just not going to panic.

Sometimes you wake up with mini panic attacks where you feel like 'Oh my God! I don't have a film right now! Should I just do something that comes my way because I don't have another film?' But I feel at the end of the day, your gut takes over.

I always panic on the first day of work. You can do all the Stanislavsky-backstory homework, but when that moment arrives and you are in the clothes, hair, and makeup of somebody else, and you're saying the words created by somebody else - I never know how to do it. It's a complete mystery to me.

I got started acting by going to auditions that my mom found in the entertainment section of our local news paper. Then, I got a manager and started going out on more auditions.