Quotes About Acting

I think TV somehow would restrict my performance to one particular role whereas, in films, I will get more opportunity to show my versatility.

Whereas acting, you have to wait for someone else to give you the opportunity to do it, in comedy, you can just pick out your own strengths and be like, I'm just going to show the best bits to the world.

I wanted to act; wherever that was, I was happy. It just happened to be in America for me.

I'm a very ambitious girl. I'll go wherever there is a good part.

I have roles in plays that I hope that I'll be able to do one day. I might be doing them at, like, the East Wilton Playhouse in wherever. But I think that Edie Falco... to get something even resembling her type of roles, that would be amazing.

I'd rather do a great play than a mediocre play in New York. As much as I'd like to be seen in New York, that's not my driving motivation. My motivation is to play great roles, wherever they happen.

The camera lens or the television camera is still just a proscenium arch. And as a great old character actor once said to me, wherever you're acting, you reach up and take hold of the proscenium arch, and you pull it down around your shoulders.

I definitely won't play the bad German, the Nazi German, here in Hollywood or wherever.

I try to look at every role the same way, regardless of whether the character is real or the character is a fantasy. I always start from myself, because you have to know yourself first.

It is not whether you really cry. It's whether the audience thinks you are crying.

I'm not one of these actresses like, 'Okay, where's the camera? Is it here? Is it here?' I don't even ask the questions because I don't really want to know. I like not performing for a camera but giving it my best every single time whether you're close or whether you're far.

I never went to drama school, I don't have any certificates saying: 'He's a qualified actor.' But I did think that 'House' was something I didn't have to apologise for. It was something I was really proud of and it was sort of... whether you liked it or not, it was undeniable.

While acting is a passion, hosting is fun.

I did buy an electric guitar while shooting 'Split.'

It's nice to play a three-dimensional person every once in a while for a change of pace.

I'd been trying for a while to get parts that weren't just the English bad guy, so it was quite refreshing to be playing someone who was a compassionate, decent guy.

Dontel Benjamin on 'Eastbound' is a loud-mouth, braggadocios, crazy man, while Roy on 'Rake' is a very deliberate, thoughtful man, and he doesn't scream a lot.

I've loved the escapism of being another person, slipping into another character for a little while.

There isn't anything that pays you as much money as acting while you are deciding what the hell you're going to do with yourself.

My only criteria while selecting roles is that it should be a lead part in an interesting story where the character has depth and layers.

I was convinced that acting was for fools. I was on the stage when I was eight with my father, he was playing one of those Greek blind guys that sees things and warns people, whilst I was in a blue skirt. I think there were 5,000 people in the theatre, it was ridiculous.

I can't afford to step away from acting, but the one thing I've learnt after all these years is that I don't fit in. It's very difficult to be at the mercy of other people's whims and visions.

In about 9th grade, an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school, so I did on a whim. I got accepted. Then I got accepted at the Julliard School, and by then, I was serious about it.

Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, I did not choose acting; acting chose me. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football. In about 9th grade an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school so I did on a whim. I got accepted.