Quotes About Acting

Well every moment, every project is different. I took a very slow approach to acting, trying to really work with people I could learn from. And I got something different out of each experience.

When I'm playing Big Momma, it's so much work that all I want to do, when I'm finished, is go back home and just relax and study my lines and get ready for the next day.

It always surprised me that I was getting acting work.

Less so here, I've noticed. I can see why there's a misconception that it's easier when your parents are actors, but it doesn't work out at all. In fact, it's the reverse.

In some roles you do that very hard work where, at some point into rehearsals, where all of a sudden it snaps into place. You feel like the soul of this character is now dwelling in you.

Acting has to reach everybody on some level - it's a communication of feeling - but as far as judging the work is concerned, it is, I think, something that actors know about.

I have four to five months, tops!, per year to give to my acting work.

Working with [Kyle Chandler] in the scene was like playing tennis. You work with really talented actors, I think they make other actors look really, really good.

If I work with a bad actor, my reaction is to immediately become worse than they are.

I usually work from the inside out but sometimes in comedy it's fun to work from the outside in.

When you come to actually act, it's a game. It may be a very serious game, but it's still a game. If you lose that sense of play, the work suffers.

Actors are always a little high at work. Acting is their drug. So when you put the brakes on, they're naturally a little disappointed.

The notion that acting is simply about intuitively responding to situations the way you feel couldn't be farther away from how I ask actors to work.

It's fun working on the set... I usually work about 10 and a half hours a day, and I also study about five of those hours. It can be tiring, but it's fun!

I haven't been offered a lot of comedy. In theater, I've done quite a bit of comedy or dramas that included a lot of funny stuff. But in my TV work, those aren't the roles that I've been offered.

At the time I was growing up in the business I was very well established within the industry as a child actor and as I grew up and turned into a teenager there was less and less work.

I was told that I was good in my dance movement classes and that I should concentrate on dance because it would enhance my ability to get acting work.

Starship Troopers was great. It was great fun to work on something with blue screens and big budget special effects. Denise Richards was nice to look at too, of course.

When I work, I really try to get absorbed in the character. Unless I want to do something playful with the camera, I'm not too worried about where the camera is or positions.

Any actor will tell you that you go where the work is, especially when you have children.

I wanted to work with Bert Lahr [the 'Cowardly Lion' in 'The Wizard of Oz'], and I did.

I don't want to sound like too much of a drama queen! But I'm not going to tell you, 'Oh, it's just so much fun.' It's work [working on film].

If it seems like you're doing work when you're acting, then you're doing something wrong.

I couldn't be happier to not be acting. I miss it, but I don't miss the auditioning or trying to get work.