Quotes About Acting

Once you've agreed the script, you must be willing to go as far as it needs to go on set.

Acting came easy to me, I think. There's something about it that's a lot easier for me in the sense that you're playing someone else. In music, you're giving somebody 'you.' Being able to do that and being willing to share that is an entirely different thing.

What I'm known for - 'Game of Thrones,' 'Star Wars' - they film in England, but they're American productions. Because American productions are willing to see Asian actors.

One thing that seems to surprise the studios is finding out later my willingness to audition. Under the right circumstances, I actually enjoy it very much.

I met my agent through a casting director here in Wilmington after I auditioned for a Disney movie.

There are plus-size women who've paved the way - Rebel Wilson, Gabby Sidibe, Melissa McCarthy. I can't wait for the day when I can have a conversation, and it's not about the size of my pants but how I prepared for the role.

I go to Stanford, and I'm an economics major, not thinking I'm going to do anything with acting. A professor came to the dorm where I lived looking for people to audition for an August Wilson play, 'Joe Turner's Come And Gone.' I gave it a shot, got one of the lead roles in the play.

I studied acting in NYU's graduate program, in which we covered everything from Ibsen and Chekov to August Wilson and David Mamet.

I'm formally trained, I don't know what classically trained really means. I've worked with Sanford Meisner. And I've worked at Circle Rep with Marshall W. Mason and Lanford Wilson and some really good people. I was lucky. I had a lot of really good influences.

That's my only plan: to keep doing good roles and win appreciation.

Acting is a win-win situation. There is no risk involved. That's why I get tired of hearing actors who try to make out that there's a downside to it. Fame is an odd thing. It bugs you a little bit, but it's really not bad.

I sang in 'Waiting for Guffman,' and I sang in 'A Mighty Wind.' I can carry a tune, but I don't like that Broadway singing.

I was once supposed to play the wind in a commercial - yes, the wind. I didn't get it.

I was very young when I saw 'Gone With the Wind,' but I fell in love with Clark Gable. And when I got to work with him, I couldn't believe it. I still had a crush on him. He was quite an old man by then; he must have seen that I was head over heels, even though I was married.

And my mother caught wind of this. She never had really tried to guide my career or really had any say in my life as an adult, but this was the one time she said she would never speak to me again if I quit acting.

Making the unbelievable believable is different on a set with 'Fantastic Four,' where it's like, 'Wind machines! Because the airship is coming in and you're pretending to be afraid!'

I may be 80, but I intend to keep acting until the day I die. Instead of slowing down, I've discovered my second wind.

I saw my sister in this production of 'Whistle Down the Wind' - my sister was a really big theater kid - and when I saw her do that, I was so obsessed. Those were like my first words; I was singing along to the songs. From that point on, I did theater, and then I got into acting in film and television.

Regarding green screen, green screen is really like doing some stage work. You have to make believe that there is a window, make believe that something is there that is really not there and convince the audience. It's part of acting.

I think you get the most honest performances when an actor shows up to set with their lines memorized. That's a very important thing that a lot of people seem to forget. You have a pre-conceived notion of what you want the scene to be, but once you get there, that goes out the window and it turns out to be a way that you never imagined.

The eyes are the windows of your soul, and when you're acting, they're one of your most important instruments. Especially for close-ups!

I look back at that time fondly. It's something I never thought I'd get the chance to do, be in a soap. Working with Barbara Windsor and Steve McFadden - they're legends in their own lifetimes aren't they?

After filming I like to go home and lie down with my daughter and have a glass of wine so I don't really socialize with the other actors.

I knew with The West Wing that that wasn't going to be for very long, that I was just the red herring.