Quotes About Acting

It's like you always have to put on a happy face, be the phony baloney, and I'm so not that. I never was that I'll never be that. That is part of the business that I don't like. Maybe that will always keep me an outsider, I don't know. But that's fine.

But my happiness in this world - my level of peace - is never going to be dictated by acting.

I love acting. It's my playground, it let's me explore. But my happiness in this world - my level of peace - is never going to be dictated by acting.

It is often difficult to watch yourself onscreen, especially 60-feet high. As an actor, it is an uncomfortable experience.

What's monotonous about being an actor and often makes me want to throw in the towel or drive a car off a bridge is the auditioning - the waiting around.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be serious, like Daniel Day-Lewis. No one really dreams of being a comic actor, do they? Now I realise how stupid that is - and it's because comic acting isn't taken seriously enough. It's a discipline. You know instantly - either you're funny and getting the laughs, or you're not.

My grandmother was an actress too. In the thirties and forties she was under contract with Universal Studios. Crazy credits, lots of them. My dad was also under contract with Universal Studios. And my first film was shot on the same stage they both worked on at Universal.

It's interesting - I always thought when I was doing more melodramatic stuff like 'Everwood' that the directors were constantly reeling me in and stopping me from being funny.

Movies have takes. But plays are like life - you don't really get takes.

Dude, I didn't say Jude Law can't act. I didn't say Jude Law was in bad movies. I just said he's in every movie.

Essentially, I'm untrained, so I just go with my imagination and try to put myself as solidly as I can into the shoes of whatever person I'm going to be playing.

There are movies that require fantasy and slightly more fantastical acting. Lines that are good for certain movies, in real life circumstances, would be absolutely unbelievable things to really say, and you would look at these people like they're freaks for conversing that way. But somehow for certain styles of movies, it works, and it seems fine.

The only thing I would unequivocally say is that I have never had any interest in romantic comedy I just couldn't do it. I think I'd be terrible.

The expression of emotion does not come naturally, so you learn to fake it. To pretend. To display an empathy you don't actually feel.

Unless it's a specific accent, or something about physicality you have to change, I am generally not such a conscious actor.

Everything, I think, about acting is based on imagination.

I've been looking to do TV for a while. I've always done guest starring stuff. I've done a couple of multi-episode arcs, and I've always loved the experience.

My dream role would probably be a psycho killer, because the whole thing I love about movies is that you get to do things you could never do in real life, and that would be my way of vicariously experiencing being a psycho killer. Also, it's incredibly romantic.

I think theatre is by far the most rewarding experience for an actor. You get 4 weeks to rehearse your character and then at 7:30 pm you start acting and nobody stops you, acting with your entire soul.

You've got to have brains to play dumb.

I'm leaving the screen because I don't think I am very good in the pictures and I have this beautiful dream that I'm elegant on the stage.

Movie acting is a great job for your twenties: You travel all over, you have affairs with people, and you throw yourself into one part and then another. It gets more challenging as you get older, and it's not just having a daughter, it's wanting to have your own life and be yourself.

No matter how many modern parts I do, people still refer to me as Mrs. Costume Drama. Fight Club is a studio pic, and I've done very few of those. I've got a feeling it's going to change things for me.

I love changing the way I look like because I always feel super strange whenever I do watch something that I'm in.