Quotes About Actor

I work out religiously. It's great for my back. It's great for my core. I've been exposed to lots of exercise regimens and movement classes as an actor, so I understand the importance of stretching and staying limber, but Pilates is what's really spoken to me. It works everything out.

I have the cliche 'struggling actor' story. I was waiting tables in New York, went out to L.A. soon after graduation to get some jobs, but it didn't work out. I wanted to cut my teeth in professional theater, so I came back to New York. It made my journey a longer one, but I really wanted to excel in the theater.

I had just screen-tested with the director for another prince for a Disney project. I won't say which one, but I'd kind of been through the process with that - and I was so gutted that it didn't work out. I said to my agent, I'm swearing off princes for a little bit.'

Ideally I'd like to be working steadily as an actor: movies, a TV series, that sort of thing. I've been through a few different TV development cycles, and they didn't work out. When the time and project are right, it'll come together. Like I tell a lot of guys, it's not a race; there's no finish line.

I keep dumbbells in my trailer, and I work out between takes.

Most of your life as an actor in Hollywood, either an actress or an actor, you have to look - you have to work out, you have to look - you rarely get to play someone who's just human, who's real, who is overweight, even not grossly overweight, but who has aspects of just everyday life.

I have played Dracula a thousand times on stage and I find I have become thoroughly settled in the technique of the stage and not of the screen.

I think I'm a good actor, but to replicate tens of thousands of man hours in surgery is really hard.

I like it when an actor is secure enough to ask questions, and the director is secure enough not to be threatened by that.

People say you should do it this way, someone else suggests that, yes, there's financing, but maybe you should use this actor. And there are the threats, at the end - if you don't do it this way, you'll lose your box office; if you don't do it that way, you'll never get financed again... 35, 40 years of this, you get beat up.

I ran away from three different boarding schools before joining a circus school, and eventually I became an actor. The only thing I learned at boarding school was never to send my child to one.

When you're doing characters from famous novels, you have a responsibility as an actor to make it what the writer intended. And then you add and expand from there to create a three-dimensional performance.

I'm not a writer; I'm an actor. My job is to take whatever character I'm given and - especially because I have the responsibility of being a black actress, and I know young black girls are looking up, and everyone's looking to what's on television - to just try to give whatever character I'm playing as three-dimensional a portrayal as I can.

One of my favorite experiences in my career, certainly one of the most interesting characters I've ever played, was Simon Lee on 'The Event.' That was a show I was quite proud of and a character I really enjoyed playing. It was one of the most three-dimensional characters that was ever written for me and that I'd ever gotten to play.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

I spent so long studying really hard to become a fine actor, but threw it all away because I got the adulation and the fame so easily.

I went to Europe with Spencer Tracy. What a thrill, working with John Ford when I was a kid.

I want to do a biopic as an actor. It's a thrill... I would love it if I am able to do a biopic.

Being an actor, I never think I'm going to get the part. It's always a thrill when things go the way you hope they will.

Theatre gives you an altogether different kind of thrill which every actor who wants to grow must try.

I'm an actor. The fact that I'm involved in Jigsaw, I don't approach Jigsaw any differently than I approached The Nordic in 'The Firm' or FBI Agent Stokes in 'Mississippi Burning.' It's the same deal. It's just that the effect is sometimes different. So I say, people ask me, 'How does it feel to be a horror icon?' I'm thrilled. It's great.

I always felt thrilled and amazed that I could put actor on my tax form.

I have to admit I've rarely been happier in my life. I have been absolutely thrilled to be back in New York and living a block from where I grew up. Just to be back in New York and, quite honestly, away from Hollywood has been an absolute thrill for me. I feel like I'm a real actor again.

Michael Kitchen is my favourite actor. We were at the same table at an awards once, and I was so thrilled, I had to go and sit next to him... he's mesmeric.