Quotes About Acting

Any time you get a role that's a young person, that resembles what it's like to be a teenager, I always kind of jump at it.

I went to acting school for like a year and ended up doing voiceovers and stuff. I could have done a lot more with it but at the time I really wasn't taking it seriously.

Certain people do need to stay in character the whole time, and that's just what they require as a person.

Now if I cry on screen I think it's mint. Because I think that's how that person would feel at that time. And if it doesn't, then it just doesn't happen.

To be at acting school, it was kind of the first time you felt the freedom to be as much of yourself as you wanted. People weren't going to judge you.

John Ventimiglia, who was on 'The Sopranos,' was in my first acting class and we have been friends since that time. Alec Baldwin was in my class back then, Sean Young and Andrew McCarthy.

It's not really a preparation when you know the character that you're playing. It's not too difficult. It would be more difficult the first time, I guess.

It's nice to be able to challenge myself by playing real people. But at the same time it utilizes a different part of the brain to just invent new things.

The best actors in the world are the actors who don't keep the walls up all the time and allow themselves the potential to be embarrassed.

Every single time I read a script I'm breathless as I turn the pages.

I think that acting can be a very pressurized existence. So when I'm not working, I spend very loose and unpressurized time and I like to meet people who have a similar attitude.

It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine

No one reveals himself as he is; we all wear a mask and play a role. - On Psychology

Only the carrying out stamps the resolve; till then, it is always a mere intention that can be altered; it exists only in reason, in the abstract. Only in reflection are willing and acting different; in reality they are one.

The real meaning of persona is a mask, such as actors were accustomed to wear on the ancient stage; and it is quite true that no one shows himself as he is, but wears his mask and plays his part.

Instead of becoming depressed that I was in the locked ward of a mental hospital, I pretended I was playing a role in a movie, possibly on my way to an Emmy.

I have only one rule in acting--trust the director, and give him heart and soul.

You never wanted me to be real. You never wanted anyone to be. But you didn't want me to show it. You wanted an act to help your act...

Your job as actors is to understand the size of what you say, to understand what's beneath the word.

When you most succeed, you do so by seeming not to act at all.

Don't use your conscious past. Use your creative imagination to create a past that belongs to your character. I don't want you to be stuck with your own life. It's too little.

You'll begin to act when you can forget your technique - when it is so securely inside you that you need not call upon it consciously.

Acting requires a creative and compassionate attitude. It must aim to lift life up to a higher level of meaning and not tear it down or demean it. The actor's search is a generous quest for that larger meaning. That's why acting is never to be done passively.

Acting can be the healthiest profession in the world, because it allows you to do things you can't do in real life. It allows you to understand more than just what life provides you.