Quotes About Acting

Tamil for me is my cousin Esha. I even told her that I was preparing to play a Tamilian and asked her if she could teach me the language.

I landed in Mumbai & I started doing acting. I would do acting for 5 days and I would teach Physics & Maths in the remaining two days which would cover my expenses.

I'd like to be the role model to teach other people who have Down's syndrome to be actors and actresses and to be themselves and not try to be a big shot.

I can walk into a room and create a good ambience. I was taught all about this back when I studied acting. One of the things they would teach you is how to send out positive signals when you enter a room. I am glad I learned this.

All they teach you in drama school is how to do stage fights and be a pain in rehearsals.

The thing about me is I have a great little acting school. I teach about 125 students.

My first acting job happened by accident when I was really young. I was in fifth grade and my teacher saw an ad in the paper and took me to the audition after school and I got the part.

I had a great movement teacher - he showed me how to walk so I wasn't becoming like a cartoon.

I went whole hog at the actor's lifestyle - really embraced it. I had by then known how much I loved acting already, because I discovered acting from a teacher in the seminary - that's the first place I ever did it, in the seminary.

My first manager, Suzanne DeWalt, saw a play I was in. She was invited by the director Joan Scheckel, who was my first real acting teacher. Joan was also good friends with my friend Susie Landau Finch, who had first encouraged me to consider acting, so that's how I began studying.

I do readings at the public library. I just did a benefit scene night for my old acting teacher.

I kind of fell backwards into acting. I was studying to be a high school teacher. I look now and I understand completely, or actually barely, how much work it is to be a teacher. It's an incredible amount of work.

I think good actors are born with a kind of native gift. When you study too much with an acting teacher, that gets taken away. You lose your sense of spontaneity.

I loved doing 'Teachers.' I don't know if it's set me on a road, but it certainly got me out of financial penury for two years. But as much as I love it - and it's a huge sacrifice - as much as I love it, I'm in acting because I'm searching to do lots of different things.

I've definitely had crazy acting teachers.

I definitely felt by the time I got to grad school - which was a great experience - I was like, 'What's the difference between the teachers and the students? Why are the teachers teachers if they want to be acting?' It didn't make sense to me anymore. It's not like you learn how to set a broken bone and you get the stamp of approval.

The first acting thing I ever did was my senior year I decided not to play a sport in the Spring and, in that Spring B.J. Novak who went to school with me, asked if I'd be in this show that was a parody of all the teachers in the school, 'sure!' That was the first acting thing I did.

In acting class, teachers talk about how the 'givens' of a situation help define a character.

Even when I was an actor in training, one criticism my teachers had was that I should think about directing instead of acting, because the best actors see the material they're working on through blinders. They can't see anything but their role. I could never really do that.

I have the support of my parents and my teachers. They made it very possible for me to go to a school that is open and supportive of me being gone at times and pursuing acting. But school always comes first for me.

The only way I survived at school was by doing impersonations of teachers and pupils. That led to me winning a talent competition when I was 16; the prize was three or four gigs in working men's clubs. I was just showing off: at the time, I thought that's what acting was.

Scene study is isolated. I suppose it's interesting, but I don't think it really teaches you about a throughline. A throughline is something you feel when you do one scene followed by another followed by another.

My dad teaches me. He teaches me everything. He's been acting for over 30 years, so he knows a lot.

It's a rare opportunity to play a character that is not only a lot of fun to portray, but it's also rare to play someone that teaches you something.