Quotes About Acting

It was extremely useful to grow up in front of the camera. It gives the camera no significance. I think it helped me have perspective on things. The attraction that Hollywood can have, I feel like I'm over that. Instead I just concentrate on acting.

If you're playing a real person, then you want to do a certain amount of research, but that's only going to be so useful to you. Each role requires a different kind of approach to get ready.

A lot of time, the characters I've played in the past kind of come out in me in situations when it's very useful.

Usefulness! It is not a fascinating word, and the quality is not one of which the aspiring spirit can dream o' nights, yet on the stage it is the first thing to aim at.

At drama school I learned the Stanislavski technique, which uses sentimental memories and bits of your past to put real emotion into the scene.

Somebody sent me a British magazine listing the 20 worst dialects ever done in movies. I was No. 2, with the worst Cockney accent ever done. No. 1 was Sean Connery, because he uses his Scottish brogue no matter what he's playing.

In 'Drama,' I play a flirtatious girl who uses her femininity to get things done.

I've had some painful experiences in my life, but I feel like I'm trivializing them by using them for a scene in a movie. I don't want to do that. It just makes me feel kind of dirty for having done that.

I can watch movies that I've been in, and if there's an emotional scene, I remember specifically what I was using, what I was thinking about, because I am very specific in how I work.

I went from an unemployed actor's life to doing stand-up comedy, and that was fortuitous. It's not the usual way the crow flies, going from being in a TV sketch show to playing one of Shakespeare's finest characters, but, hey, that's the way it has happened.

Usually I'm frustrated when I look at my films and I don't believe that I've made a real transformation beyond my usual sets of gestures and expressions. I still have this nagging feeling that it's me, that I didn't create a unique character.

I didn't act in college, per se, because I didn't want an acting degree. I don't know what you do with that degree. When I was 16, I saw 'Usual Suspects,' and I wanted to be a director as well. So I thought I should go to school for directing and producing, something I knew nothing about.

I was nine when I started getting laughs in a school comedy sketch one day, and acting became all I wanted to do. I'm sure my career choice was difficult for my parents: they would have had the usual parental neurosis about how tumultuous the business can be, with lots of actors out of work.

There was the usual summer stock, the New England tours and then I started doing all kinds of roles for CBS after moving to California.

You always have to have a bit of fun if somebody is dead in a scene. That's a red rag to a bull for an actor. You do a little poking. You do things to annoy the actor. It's your job. You have to utilize the opportunity. You have to get through the day.

I had never really acted before, so I really didn't know what I was doing. The casting director for 'Euphoria' set me up with an acting coach in New York, and he completely flipped my world around. The way you learn to utilize your brain and your emotions really freaked me out.

It's very, very important to me, no matter who the person is, to play that person with the utmost degree of truth that I'm able to bring. But playing a character like Jack Sparrow or Willy Wonka, that requires nothing but a degree of responsibility to the intent of the story - responsibility to the film-maker to deliver the goods.

I play my part in my films with utmost honesty.

I stopped making movies because I don't like taking my clothes off. Maybe it's realism, but in my opinion, it's utter filth.

At castings for commercials, you end up being told to do ridiculous things, such as animal impersonations. You probably get one commercial for 20 utter humiliations.

As far as base humiliation goes, acting is a tough business. It's a tough, embarrassing thing to do for a living when you're starting out, and you better not have any ego or pride, because that will be wiped away clean by utter devastation.

When you act a scene with Sidney Poitier, he listens intently to every word you say. You can feel your words hit him. He makes the scene utterly real.

I struggle to watch myself in any scene, to be honest. What's done is done. I wish I was able to watch myself, as it would really help me develop as an actor. But I'm not brave enough. It's a difficult thing to do - looking at yourself as this utterly different person on a screen.

Absolutely not, because in acting I've found a domain that suits me perfectly. And that is so utterly rare.