Quotes About Acting

The AT&T commercials are the most fun acting opportunity that anyone could ask for. That being said, directing exercises a part of my brain that is really fun that I don't get to try out as an actor.

I had a very embarrassing time acting extremely badly at university, which is when directing suddenly became so attractive.

I want to do directing and acting. I can do them at the same time - it's a challenge, but it's my dream.

When I'm acting, I'm a woman but when I am directing, I am an animal because I am very demanding.

It is not easy acting and directing yourself because you have to face the camera as well as look at the scene through the lens.

I fell out of love with acting and in love with directing.

What I'm having is this conflict in my life right now, that in New York, I see my directing friends and I see acting friends and they've all got this level of passion about either or both of those directions that I've never really found myself having.

I majored in drama and theater arts at Columbia and was always in acting studio, but that was a liberal arts degree, not a bachelor of arts degree, so I didn't have a traditional conservatory training. There was a lot of reading and a lot of writing involved, and only about 30 percent of my classes were directly theater-related.

I was a director and dialogue and acting coach.

I once literally had a casting director ask my agent, 'Can she play anything other than a drunk?'

Working with a great director is like getting a master class in acting.

Where else do you find great directors? Acting is one of the places.

I guess once you've been acting for a long time, you glean the great bits of good directors and the bad bits from other directors, and you know the way that you would like to be directed.

My acting experience has been a benefit. What I learned from directors is how to listen to and talk with actors. I know how they think and what they need.

I'm not a particularly ambitious actress. I love to go and do my work, head down in the dirt, and be the character.

I think all the actors I've worked with knew that I was an actor. Like, I get into the dirt with my actors and we figure out the rhythm of the scene and how it needs to sound and what the blocking is, the way you would with another actor.

If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear.

Some actors say they don't know themselves at all, and that's why they act: because they can disappear into other people.

Tilda Swinton is a great example of a person who completely disappears into a role.

I don't often see the movies I'm in; I'm usually disappointed in myself and it only serves to make me self-conscious.

I tried to play sports, which was a disaster and probably one of the reasons I ended up being an actress.

Beyond any role that I ever had, really early on as a stand-up, I would see actors decide to try it and they would bomb miserably. What I realized was that stand-up, acting and writing are all their own disciplines.

I grew up in an acting family. I was heavily discouraged from doing it myself when I was young, which is the only responsible route to take with any child, because it's not necessarily the easiest of lives.

I would say that 98 percent of the time you are not going to get the role you are going after. I think that can be very discouraging.