Quotes About Acting

When you play a character for so long, it's easy to get disengaged, and it becomes mundane and routine.

When you're a kid, you imagine acting to be singing and fighting and like the movies. Then you become an actor and get the reality, which is often a lot more mundane. But sometimes it's really nice to run around with guns saving the world.

For 'Beasts,' I really wanted my character to be this sort of mushy, muscleless Muppet.

There are actors who do various different shades of a similar character, which is fine. But I prefer the Cillian Murphy school of doing something that takes you so far outside yourself that it's an incredible challenge and adventure.

I did an episode of The Profiler. I actually worked on the last episode of Murphy Brown.

When I started comedy, I was a big Eddie Murphy fan. I thought if you did stand-up, you were supposed to know how to act, write, and host. I thought it was all one thing. That's why it doesn't feel like I'm transitioning to acting: because in my stand-up, I do characters all the time.

'Boomerang!' I love that movie just because of Halle Berry, Robin Givens, Eddie Murphy, Grace Jones and Eartha Kitt. There were so many characters. As an actress, to see African-American actors be so diverse was different from what I was used to seeing.

Television, for me, is great because I love to act, every day. I love to work that muscle. I love to learn, and I love to be able to just do what I love. It's when I'm at my best. So, I love TV for that reason because it's every day.

I have a gym membership, but that's always been more about muscle building for roles.

I'm looking for things where, like with 'Ten,' I don't look like me, and I'm playing something a bit different. I'm just trying to flex a different muscle and see if it works. I've saved the world and killed monsters and done all that. Now I want to try something a bit different and a bit more challenging.

I'm a lot girlier than the roles that I play. I joke with Tricia Helfer all the time that she's my muscle.

If you do a character that resonates enough, people are always going to see you as that character. It will just be up to me to make choices where I can flex other muscles.

I had built my body to look like a boxer, then I lost it completely for 'Tanu Weds Manu Returns.' It was really tough gaining weight, building muscles, and then losing it completely for another film.

For me, acting is like a holiday. I spend a lot of time at home with my kids, and then every so often I go out and flex my creative muscles on stage.

Acting is a sport - especially working with Mark Rylance. There is competition involved. I have to be muscular, challenging, get audiences on side. It's extraordinary how Globe audiences join in - it's like competing at an event - I love it.

In 'Night At The Museum 3,' with Ben Stiller, I was only given a couple of lines. If you are in guys' comedies, it's not like you are ever going to just get handed some jokes and a brilliant role.

I mean, my music career and my acting career - if I want to do them to the extent that I eventually do want to get to, it's going to be a bit of a balancing act. But I'm hoping they'll just go hand in hand.

I can't take a break from acting but I've learnt to work my way around films and devote time to my music career.

The music industry is something that I'm still trying to understand. With acting, I've been doing it for so long that I understand every aspect of it for the most part - there are obviously still more aspects that I need to learn - but I have a grasp on it. With music, I'm still learning. I'm still getting used to it.

I've never been in the music industry, only acting.

It would be great to do theater one day, but I don't think I'd do a musical.

I did a lot of theater growing up, and in college I was in the musical 'Chicago.'

'Allegiance' is pretty much a book musical. You know, people talk and then they burst out into song.

Musical theater is often seen as a lesser form of acting, although I don't see it that way.