Quotes About Acting

You just play what a writer writes, in terms of what a character chooses to do and how a character chooses to deal with their various relationships.

Sometimes a writer writes scenes for people who just say 'Hi' to indicate they're in love. I play those scenes very well.

Writing, of course, is writing, acting comes from the theater, and cinematography comes from photography. Editing is unique to film. You can see something from different points of view almost simultaneously, and it creates a new experience.

There's good movies and there's bad movies. The genres are never dead, it's just about how to apply them and articulate them and execute them - the story, the quality of the writing, the acting, the design elements, the directorial execution - all these things make it what it is.

I loved 'Everybody Loves Raymond' because I like Ray and I thought it was beautifully cast, I thought it was great writing. I thought Patricia Heaton was wonderful.

I don't really know if I'm writing the kind of roles that Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore would play. Jessica Lange on 'American Horror Story' is a little bit more my cup of tea.

Producing is hell, writing is frustrating, acting is really satisfying, directing is heaven.

I started playing piano when I was 6. And I knew that wanted to be involved in that form of expression, whether it was through music, or acting, or dancing, or painting, or writing.

The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility??of being unable to undo what one has done??is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. Both faculties depend upon plurality, on the presence and acting of others, for no man can forgive himself and no one can be bound by a promise made only to himself.

Each society demands of its members a certain amount of acting, the ability to present, represent, and act what one actually is. When society disintegrates into cliques such demands are no longer made of the individual but of members of cliques. Behavior then is controlled by silent demands and not by individual capacities, exactly as an actor's performance must fit into the ensemble of all other roles in the play.

In order to be totally spontaneous, you can't be too obsessed with accuracy, but if you're inaccurate in a drawing, it will look fake, and when you act, it will sound fake. You have to find miraculously some proper balance between the two, but there's no formula.

My biggest challenge will be to play the totally submissive woman. It takes a toll on you when you play someone who's far removed from your personality.

But acting is very much a profession that is you're hot one moment and not the next - and that is totally cool. I think that's what I find most fascinating and most exciting about it - is that it can be gone in a puff of smoke.

Honestly, ever since I've been married, the part of a job as an actress where you have to kiss other people, I find totally bizarre.

The most famous person in my phone is Lindsay Lohan. We starred in 'Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen' together in 2004 and we've stayed in touch.

If you start to disrespect the character you're playing, or play it too much for laughs, that can work for a sketch, it will sell some gags, but it's all technique. It's like watching a juggler - you can be impressed by it, but it's not going to touch you in any way.

The feeling of being at sea has put me in touch with who I am to a greater degree than if I had been on land all these years. So, in a roundabout way, I imagine it does inform my acting.

I believe, and this is perhaps too nationalistic a view, that the American style of acting puts actors quickly in touch with each other, so that their continuous presence in a company, as in England, is not absolutely necessary.

Doing these parts is not fun. It's challenging, but no fun. It's creepy. I would rather play the guy that throws the touchdown pass and gets carried off the field.

I went to college at NYU for acting, since acting was my dream from very young. I did a lot of hip-hop courses while I was there. I helped co-write a hip-hop production for the main stage of NYU, but I never touched rap.

My first paying job was guest starring in 'Touched By An Angel' when I was 12. It was very exciting. I couldn't believe you got free food all day and people were so nice to you.

In third grade, my teacher asked me to read in front of the class. I was so touched because that really was the first acting I had ever done, just reading in front of the class. And I was so amazed with the fulfillment I got from being in front of people.

I'm fascinated with acting now. In retrospect, I was only beginning to chip off the tip of the iceberg with how far I can go or what I was exploring inside of me that I hadn't touched in a while as far as emotional headspaces.

I also was deeply touched by 'The Nun's Story' because it was the first time I saw my mother in something other than a romantic comedy.