Quotes About Acting

I find that comedy is my specialty, but drama is slowly starting to move up in that rank. I've always liked playing a character that has depth and that I'm able to bring my own niche to.

I'd done stage musicals for quite a few years, starting with 'Grease' in Auckland.

Learning lines is on my mind until I do know them. I'll read the paper or paint the house to keep from starting to memorize. I've never found an easy way.

Sometimes when you're starting out with acting, you have to take what you can get to get experience and meet people.

When I was a kid, I had ambitions for being a television announcer, which was before television took off, you know, in the late '40s. And just through necessity, going out looking for work, I was starting to sing, and dance, and act, and I never expected to do that, nor to have any success at it at least.

People don't realise what a nice thing it is for an actor to go to a job where they know or like everybody, because you're so often having to do new beginnings, starting off on set with people you don't know, having to introduce yourself and make friends.

I'm a natural blonde, but my hair has been almost every color you can imagine. As an actor, I like to get into my character as much as I can, and often that starts with the color of my hair.

For me, as an actor, the challenge is mostly before the film starts when you have to get into the psychology of the character.

Every role I've played, that could've happened. It's nice, it happens, but it is rather disconcerting when a young child comes up to at the airport and starts doing your lines, it happens.

I make movies for grownups. When Hollywood starts making them again, I'll start acting in them again.

An actress in a film starts every day with an hour and a half in front of a mirror, with hair and make-up and costumes.

Breaking is when someone starts to laugh in the middle of a scene, which is so fun to watch.

Kids kill a show! It's, like, a fun concept when the character is pregnant, but then if a show runs for a while, I'm sorry, but it gets annoying when it starts to talk. You get a child actor in there, and unless that child actor is freakin' awesome, it's going to be annoying.

I had two starts, really. The first was going to the Italia Conti stage school, aged 15. I'd gone to sing, but one day I found myself doing an improvisation and thought, 'Oh God, I quite like this acting thing.' The second start was meeting Mike Leigh when I was 22. He showed me I could play people that weren't like me.

The theatre starts every night at half past seven, and I like the rhythm of going to the theatre, parking the car, going to the stage door; I've grown up with all of that. I'd love to do more theatre - I mean, I shouldn't be telling the world that I can't remember lines any more, but I find it more and more difficult, so I don't know.

For film and theater, you know how the story starts; you know how the story ends. With TV, you don't. It's literally like living real life in character.

You'll be offered the 'lead' in this new hot film with such-and-such A-list director, 'a fabulous part' - a fabulous part? A fabulous part is a character with a soul, who starts here and goes to there, you know? There aren't many of those.

I fell in love with Nawaz on-screen after watching 'Gangs of Wasseypur.' So my love story starts with him from there. I was quite nervous to act alongside him. He is an excellent actor.

I'm dying to do a Sam Shepard play. 'Curse of the Starving Class,' 'Buried Child,' 'True West,' 'Cowboy Mouth,' 'Fool for Love' - I'll do any of them.

Starving to be skinny isn't my thing. When I don't eat, it affects my mood! On-set, I fuel up with small meals and I'm always grabbing high-protein snacks, like almonds. Chai lattes with espresso also keep me going.

I vowed I would never do a commercial, or a soap opera - both of which I did as soon as I left the Acting Company and was starving.

For a while, I was only being sent fat-girl parts. Seriously? Sometimes I feel like I'm making some kind of radical statement because I'm a size 6.

I am a professional actor, and I don't go about moralizing about what the character does. Otherwise, seriously, why be an actor? You're not making some kind of social statement. That's not what actors do.

I tend to identify with my roles to such an extent that I appear to be totally convinced about certain statements that, in real life, I would never believe in.