Quotes About Acting

If you express yourself too much. you're overacting; if you underplay it too much, it can come across as wooden.

I'd always wanted to do costume drama, but period dramas often become very wooden. Just because they're born in the 1400s, all of a sudden people start losing their sense of humour or their personalities.

I've grown up in Mumbai, did college from Mumbai, many colleges, actually - Jai Hind, Ruia, Andrews, Wilson, Whistling Woods... Then I worked as a production assistant with Prahlad Kakar, and then I started acting.

I was dirt-poor. I could barely hold down a job. Eventually, though, I started getting small parts on shows like 'Smallville,' 'Supernatural'... and lots of really bad sci-fi movies. I was running around the woods in wolf contacts, covered in fake blood made out of pancake syrup, roaring.

I've done a lot of weird, otherworldly characters, and I think I'm at my best when I'm kind of in the woods running around screaming or depressed.

I've been on 'Criminal Minds' twice! On the first show, a boy brought kids out to the woods and was beating them with a baseball bat, but I got away. Then they brought Tracy, my character, back - as a kidnapped girl. They saved me two times! Tracy lived!

The first film where I had a speaking role was 'The Low Life,' but I did appear for about three seconds in 'Straight Talk' with Dolly Parton and James Woods. I had a line, and it was cut. It was alright: I got my AEU card anyway.

We were running around in the woods telling stories and putting on costumes. We're terrible actors, but we acted in everything that we did, and it was fun.

I was barely in 'Taking Woodstock.'

People can have so many ill-conceived ideas about me based on the parts that I play. I've had guys, when I've been single, come out of the woodwork to date me and I've found out very quickly that they were expecting some kind of whirlwind, some dramatic crazy person - and that's just not me.

I was in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories in 1980. It was only a bit part and I didn't get to speak but I felt that I was in a real movie and heading where I had always wanted to be.

I would die if Woody Allen ever called and said, 'Emma, I have a role for you.'

I don't think I could do what Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood or Ben Stiller do, where they direct a movie and they star in it. I would just be like, 'Oh, I don't even want to look at my face.'

Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, you name it - I'm interested. I'm free. I'm looking for acting work. At the same time, you have to find a role you're right for, and then there's a slew of other actresses. That's why I will pursue more directing. It's like, who needs a boss? I'm right here.

I'm ready to do a Woody Allen comedy.

People who I've worked with are always like, 'Why aren't you doing comedy? You're funny!' because they've only seen the one side. I did do the comedy 'Whatever Works,' with Woody Allen and Larry David.

Being in a Woody Allen film. I cherish it.

Woody Allen likes to do a lot of master shots. He likes to get the whole thing in one take, and so you could be going along doing a scene, and then the next to last line, all of a sudden, you stumble, and you have to go back to first base.

I love doing comedy, and that's the thing I will always go back to, really, but I'd love to have the freedom to do sort of 'meaty' roles but also have the freedom to do the sort of films I want to make, like what Woody Allen does. You forget he's funny because you're so gripped by the story, but they still make you laugh.

I love movies, but sometimes I think it's better for actresses not to be total cinephiles. You have to be able to do the work at some point; you can't be totally starstruck. 'I can't believe it's Woody Allen!' You have to get past that.

Sarcasm is weird. Even not in acting, in life I feel like 'sarcastic' is a word that people use to describe me sometimes so when I meet someone, it's almost like they feel like they have to also be sarcastic, but it can sometimes just come off as mean if it's not used in the right way.

'Pigeonholed' isn't the right word, because I feel like I've had a very wide range of characters that I've been allowed to play.

It seems the more I play Jane Austen, the more poetic my writing becomes. The other day, I left a Post-it note for my husband that had the word 'ergo' on it. I gotta rein it in before I get all full out Madonnannoying.

Memorizing lines isn't really hard. Only with really hard words and stuff.