Quotes About Acting

To me, success is how recognisable your face is as an actress or a brand.

I ended up doing three very complicated off-Broadway plays that, in certain ways, were not successes in that they were received in a complicated way. But for me they were successes because they forced me to act without singing, which I'd never done before.

I've always had ambition, and the acting was successful and put my name on the map, but it was never the plan to stop there.

Never been a successful audition, not even so much as a callback, when it comes to putting me in a role of being rough.

Although the odds are you're not gonna get the acting job you go out for, it's easier to successfully audition than it is to sit down for a few months and write a movie that's going to actually sell.

In general, I think comedy is more difficult to write, to direct, and to act successfully.

If they have covered your face with latex, you have to control yourself mentally so you won't think. If you start thinking, you will succumb to panic. I had a bit of a cold, and frankly I didn't have a good time.

A lot of actresses say they are 24 when they are 34 but I find that ridiculous. I wish we didn't succumb to the youth-is-all ideology in this industry, because there is a huge audience out there who want to relate to characters of their own age played by actors of their own age.

I look at whatever the finish line is for the character and then kind of act backwards from that and play him in such a way so that that finish line is more rewarding.

I'm a pretty girl who's a model who doesn't suck as an actress.

I'm a terrible actor. I would suck in films! The only way I would do well is if I was playing myself, which is what I did in my career.

The funny thing about acting is, there's no 'right' way to make it. Some people need to work their butts off, and some don't. They're just naturals. I wasn't a natural. I sucked.

I like playing Vernon Dursley in 'Harry Potter,' because that gives me a license to be horrible to kids. I hate the odious business of sucking up to the public.

It's one of those things where if I do a movie, I don't even know if I'm any good. So, I may do one and it sucks and I'm a horrible actor, and I'll never do another one.

We were over in Europe all the time their posters were up. That's why I liked them. So now all of a sudden they're going to get a band hat on, and say people aren't acting the right way?

I remember secretly going off and crying. All of a sudden I'm being blocked and have to be intimate in a scene, and I'm going, 'I can't even look people in the eye very well. How am I ever going to do this?'

I left school and couldn't find acting work, so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up. I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.

When you're on an ensemble show and you're messing around with everybody every day and you're not in every scene, and then all of a sudden you're in every scene, it's rough.

Every time I do a play, it's as if I've never done one before. I'm always confused. I always am convinced I'm going to be fired. I'm like, 'I don't remember how to act. I don't know how to do this.' And, it's just a very slow process, and then, all of a sudden, it's just there one day. I still don't understand how it happens.

All of a sudden I'm an actor, and I spend a decade trying to fit in and realising that I didn't, really. Sometimes in the right circumstances, with the right people, it felt OK. But other times it was a bit more jobbing. I didn't fit the mould, somehow.

I never considered myself a movie star, and I didn't want to become a movie star, because as soon as you do, you throw away that possibility of playing character. You really do. All of a sudden you're just an entity, you know?

I don't think there was any point where I was like, 'I want to be an actor for the rest of my life.' The nice thing about being a kid is you don't have to make those decisions. Then all of a sudden, you blink, and you're 18.

At Second City and improvising at iO, you're creating a character in an instant. All of a sudden, you're creating this history and this past for your character, and you're discovering it while you're doing it, and that's part of the fun of it.

Suddenly playing the charming bad guy was my thing.