Quotes About Acting

It was difficult for me to feel my feelings, so I just buried them. Then I found that acting was a way for me to get them out. But now that I'm a reasonably sane adult, acting is more about my trying to engage other people: Acting is cathartic for the viewer as well.

I want to break into the acting industry. It's something I have a great deal of respect for; it's a passion of mine. It's so amazing, the differences between acting and being an athlete, but the one commonality is they both evoke emotion in the viewer. And those emotions are real. So I think that's pretty cool.

When I told my dad about my decision to take up acting, he supported me in every possible way. He's very proud of me. Mom's happy because, as an avid TV viewer, she loves seeing me up there.

Even the finest actors will have great difficulty showing somebody's loneliness. To put an actor on a chair and ask him to do nothing and yet tell the viewer everything about the character, it's a difficult task.

If an actor can emotionally bond with the viewer, then it does not matter if he is handsome or ordinary looking.

As an actor, the whole process of shooting for movie or television is so artificial though the final product may be extremely realistic to the viewer.

Well, I am a Malayali and I know the kind of expectations my fans have about my films. That, for me, is the biggest award. So I try and pick roles that I hope viewers will like. Malayalis want actors to be subtle in their acting and they enjoy realism.

As an actor, you don't want to know the beginning and end to your character's arc. It makes it more fun. You're not playing the end. You're playing it realistically. You don't know where this character is going to go and what's going to happen to him, which just makes it more interesting for the viewers to watch.

Regardless of the success of a drama or film, I will be satisfied if viewers say that my acting has progressed and has gained more depth.

I hate being typecast and I don't want to do things that are boring for me because it would be boring for the viewers as well.

I am not ready to test the viewers' patience by playing one role far too many times.

I'm grateful that so many viewers have related to characters I've played. I think many in the audience see themselves in my characters or feel like the characters are similar to their friends or sisters.

Thinking back on it, I just really didn't have very many role models to look up to when it came to Asian actresses. And in that way, when I would see an Asian onscreen, it would be a secondary-type thing, and that's kind of how I ended up viewing myself in the world: as secondary.

And while I might not always agree with the viewpoint I have to portray, because I play a district attorney, as an actress I can always tell myself that my character is trying to take the moral high ground.

After we'd filmed one series of 'Kiss Me Kate,' everyone was saying: 'The guy's got great comic timing,' - that was the first I'd heard of it. I'm not a comedian, I don't want to depend on a singular box of tricks. I like story and characters, to take on world views that are not my own.

After six months of playing Chris Darden, it's very hard for me to separate my views from his.

I have always wanted to play the role of a village girl.

I started - well, in England it works a little bit differently. You have to do Fringe theatre, which is basically free theatre. You do it in pubs and small theaters and village halls across the country, and you work for a theatre company. You're part of a troupe.

Acting happened to me by chance. Even I'm surprised how a man from a small village, Belsand, in Gopalganj district has reached Bollywood.

Shamna is a 'hot star' for Malayalis, but for my Telugu and Tamil audience, Poorna is a girl next-door. That is because I have mostly played village belle or de-glam characters in these industries. Whatever people's perception about me is I'm happy.

I once lost a role because I was told I am fair. They were looking for a village woman who is darker.

At the beginning of my acting career, I worked for two seasons at the RSC and spent a lot of time in the Cotswolds exploring Shakespeare's countryside. It's my kind of English landscape, with its tiny villages and one-room thatched pubs.

I prefer to play the villain or the antihero.

I played characters with villainous aspect. But out-and-out villain? No.