Quotes About Acting

I've had moments in my life when I've thought if I wasn't acting, if I wasn't doing what I do and I had a career in the private sector and I didn't have a family, that I do have some tendencies where I could really kind of have a monastic existence and be okay with it.

There's something about being any kind of entertainer that is acting. You have to put on a show. Things you wouldn't do in your life, you do on stage. You have to let go. And that's extra hard for rappers. We have a tendency to, quote unquote, keep it real. As an actor, you have to be able to humiliate yourself. Do whatever it takes.

I have a tendency as an actress in general to ground my characters. Even when doing outlandish characters, that's my instinct.

I have this tendency to play these horrible, horrible characters.

My tendency is to be quiet and to stay focused and in character. Not the entire time, but certainly to stay focused while I'm on set.

I think there's been a tendency to place me in what has been characterised as the 'moral centre' of the film. In films like 'The Ice Storm' and 'The Crucible' and 'Nixon,' that's the sort of the persona that emerged.

Losing my father at a tender age was hard, and I felt it more so while growing up when I needed a father to talk to. Especially while pursuing an acting career where I would have loved his guidance and advice, since it was his passion as well.

'Mike & Molly' exists in a world where we don't just say a snarky line, make a crazy face, and walk out of the room. There's actually some tender moments here, too.

I'd like to do Nicole Diver in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'Tender Is the Night,' if that ever gets made.

I think most models fear growing old, but from a tender age I had always chosen to play someone grown up. I am slowly but surely catching up with the people that I have spent the last decade and a half trying to portray.

Hamlet is a remarkably easy role. Physically it's hard because it tends to be about three hours long and you're talking the whole time. But it's a simple role and it adapts itself very well, because the thing about Hamlet is, we all are Hamlet.

Television tends to be a more difficult medium for me to get my head around sometimes when it comes to certain things I get offered.

Whatever I'm working on, the character I'm playing tends to slowly bleed into my own real life. Not in any kind of creepy, Method actor-y kind of way - it's just an innate kind of merging.

Working in film tends to isolate actors - it's your close-up; it's all about you.

I do mostly comedy, and it tends to be a subtler comedy. But I think that probably lends itself well to commercials.

Heavy food tends to make you lethargic and can interfere with your whole acting process!

When you're with another actor and doing something very intense, often you pull them over to your side, or they pull you over to theirs. But if you stay in your own truth, you can play that perfect tennis match. I always want to bring my power, but not in a way that eliminates the whole game!

Comedy prepared me for drama. There are a couple techniques you can think of. One of my acting teachers said that comedy is like ping-pong, and drama is tennis. You take things a bit slower, so you do get to breathe more and take some more time.

It's like playing tennis, you play a different rally with different people. Every actor is different and the chemistry between actors is different.

If you're working with someone who you get on with and you're supposed to hate them on the screen, then you get this playful challenge thing where you're trying to one-up each other and that's really interesting. Sometimes it can become like tennis. The harder you hit the ball back, then the harder the hit it back to you.

All the time that I'm acting with an animated character, I'm looking at a tennis ball or sticky tape or an eyeline or a man in a green suit. There's no real environment, just this electric green that's blaring into your brain.

Acting with Denzel is like playing tennis with someone that's better than you. You either play better tennis or get blown off the court.

My audiences have given me lots of love as a tennis player. I hope they appreciate my passion for acting.

I find it hard to be joyful on screen because I'm so tense.