Quotes About Acting

Do I have any potential as an actor? I don't know. I'm still wondering. But acting has kind of taken over.

For me, it's just acting. It's pretending. The best actors are children, and children don't do research. You never see a child going, 'I'm wondering about my motivation here. How can I do this toy? How can I do this train? I don't feel train.'

Once I got married and had kids, I moved away from romantic roles, because it seemed wrong to have my three-year-old wondering why Daddy was kissing someone else.

I think one of the things I enjoy about acting is the transformation, and part of that is certainly the physical transformation. If people are confused forever, wondering where they have seen me before, that feels like exactly where I want to live. It feels like something's working.

You get angry and frustrated wondering, 'Are there enough parts for women?'

I'd always wanted to act - since I starred in 'Alice in Wonderland' as a girl, that was it.

I would have loved to do 'Alice in Wonderland.' Being a 'Bond' girl would always be fun. We had a lot of action in 'Eclipse' and I'd definitely like to continue down the action road. I want to do a romantic period piece, but those are really hard to get made because they're very expensive and there's not a huge demographic.

Using social media alongside my acting career has worked wonders on both ends.

I did this one scene in an episode of 'General Hospital', and that was my first job down in L.A. It was, like, my second audition, and I was like, 'Woo! This is easy! This is fun!' That was a really cool moment for me.

I've always remembered something Sanford Meisner, my acting teacher, told us. When you create a character, it's like making a chair, except instead of making someting out of wood, you make it out of yourself. That's the actor's craft - using yourself to create a character.

Bad acting comes in many bags, various odors. It can be performed by cardboard refugees from an Ed Wood movie, reciting their dialogue off an eye chart, or by hopped-up pros looking to punch a hole through the fourth wall from pure ballistic force of personality, like Joe Pesci in a bad mood. I can respect bad acting that owns its own style.

I think 'Ballet Shoes' was a very pivotal role for me. I was about 14 then, and it was an incredible cast: Eileen Atkins, Victoria Wood, Emilia Fox, Harriet Walters. All these incredible women.

Knock wood, but I started acting professionally when I was 16, and I've always been able to support myself since then.

I've made great friends through acting. When I'm with Victoria Wood and Julie Walters, we have grand fun. We can make each other howl with laughter because we know each other so well.

I did go to public school, but that's only because my parents were abroad. As a matter of fact, I think that's helped my work. I can go from Victoria Wood's 'Dinnerladies' to playing Barbara Cartland, from 'Coronation Street' to playing Celia in Last 'Tango'.

My mom's a screenwriter, and before that, she was an actress, and my father was an actor; my stepfather was a director, so I was on sets a lot as a kid. I loved the magic of the set. You walk in, and it's a living room, and you walk outside, and it's just a piece of wood held up by another piece of wood.

I'd like to be played as a child by Natalie Wood. I'd have some romantic scenes as Audrey Hepburn and have gritty black-and-white scenes as Patricia Neal.

I really don't think there is anybody in the business with better eyes than Elijah Wood.

Whether it's a blessing or a curse, I have always played someone like 10 years younger. When I was 23 or 24, I was playing 15 opposite Evan Rachel Wood in a movie called 'Pretty Persuasion.' She was 16 and nobody in a million years would have thought I was that much older than her.

I never was happy with the job I did in 'Ed Wood.'

I don't take myself seriously in the slightest, so it does amaze me that I've ended up being in all these very dark, sinister plays. But I love it because, touch wood, I'm lucky enough not to have that level of darkness in my life.

I am Killian Murphy. One day, I realised I needed a new name. I was doing 'Under Milk Wood' and had 24 hours to come up with a new one.

I was in 'Babes in the Wood' at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow in the Eighties. I was the villain - the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham.

I feel like everything you learn as an actor growing up is wrong. You're supposed to hit your mark, find your light and know your lines. Those are all things that just make things wooden, dull and boring.