Quotes About Acting

People do still mention 'Clueless' to me. I'm proud and happy that I was in it.

A lot of people ask me, when I mention I'm from Australia, that I must have been on 'Home And Away,' and I tell them was one of the few who didn't take that route. That's because I auditioned for 'Home And Away,' and I didn't get booked, so you'd call that a knock back.

You can be a really terrible actor - I won't mention any names - but, as long as you're good-looking, you can get by with it. Okay, Keanu Reeves. He's a diabolical actor, but he still looks good.

Karl Malden was quite a mentor. He taught me things he had learned from being in front of a camera so long.

I only act in films where I've got an A-lister as my mentor.

I want to dip my foot in some acting. And most definitely want to mentor upcoming artists and give them the wisdom that was given to me.

When someone on screen portrays a character that behaves in a way you don't expect, you're subverting ideas. So if there's a Venn diagram between why people are drawn to the characters I play, it may be that. But I'd like to think that the craft of acting and the choices I make as an actor are drawing people on their own merits.

I will never be a Robert De Niro or Meryl Streep, the kind of actor that disappears into a role.

I was acting with all my childhood heroes: Meryl Streep, Saoirse Ronan, all of those amazing women.

I was in a movie called 'Before & After' with Meryl Streep. I was edited out of the movie, but no one told me. I think I was 18 or 19 years old. I sat across from her and asked her every question about acting. I completely embarrassed myself.

Two of my favorite actresses are Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie. So, I would love, love, love to work with them. But I also really love AnnaSofia Robb. There are a lot of great actresses I would love to work with.

Know who you are, because that's how you will be cast at first. Then you can be Meryl Streep further down the road.

As for people I would love to work with, Meryl Streep, of course! She's my favorite.

Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts act themselves senseless in 'August: Osage County,' and by the time they're finished, they've acted their movie senseless, too.

My all-time favourite actor is Meryl Streep. She can do anything and everything. She's so good in 'Sophie's Choice.' She changes her accent so well, which is something actors in India don't do although we should, so that we can be more authentic to our craft.

In acting, you have to fool yourself - you mess with yourself into believing things.

If I'm in the middle of a take and I start to think about what I'm doing, I just mess up and I have to stop and so I find that for me, you really need to trust your instinct.

When somebody says, 'Do you want to play Dr. Dre in a movie?' I mean, how do you respond to that? My initial response was 'no' because I don't think I can do it ,and I don't want to be the one to mess it up!

If I'd been in a school play, I'd probably have sneezed and messed everything up.

Getting to do what I think was my fifth BBC drama with Nikki Amuka-Bird - we've done 'Shoot The Messenger,' 'Five Days,' 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency,' 'Born Equal' and now 'Small Island' - was another highlight for me. And filming in Jamaica was great, too.

Messing up lines is always embarrassing for me.

It's always fun messing around with costumes and stuff. You know there is an element of acting that you've got to dress-up; that's part of it.

On a studio film, you don't have to worry about running out of film or messing up your costumes; you have five other sets of it. Studio films make you the most comfortable so you can just act.

'The Replacements' is where I met Jon Favreau, and we just clicked like, you know, like kids at a camp.