Richard Masur Quotes

When you get to set, you don't try to play the plot; you just play the character.

Creating a character and living truthfully through her is a whole different ball game. It's all part of the same person but it's a much newer medium for me.

I am a professional actor, and I don't go about moralizing about what the character does. Otherwise, seriously, why be an actor? You're not making some kind of social statement. That's not what actors do.

You have to find out how to become the character.

What I love to do requires portraying different characters, and you have to separate your life from the role.

As actors, you play people who are not yourselves!

Actors act... Their job is to become this character. And I have, in fact, seen Sam Heughan become Jamie and Caitriona Balfe become Claire right before my eyes. It was an astonishing transformation.

If the role is challenging enough, I don't see why I shouldn't play an older man or a father figure. It is not about playing what you are in real life. We are called actors for a reason!

The thing about being an actor is that you're acting. It's not that big of a deal of to play someone different from yourself.

In acting class, teachers talk about how the 'givens' of a situation help define a character.

As an actor, one's role is very much to respond and react to the situation within the context of the character and his world.

That's what acting is. You're pretending to be someone else.

Preparation is definitely important, but it depends on the kinds of roles I do. Like, I completely identify with my character in 'Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani.' I had to be myself and I didn't have to actually prepare for it.

I can inhabit any character in a way that is difficult to do successfully in a contemporary novel.

When I do film, I really take on roles and I take on characters.

Most of the time, actors respond to the thing that's so far from who they are. We all want to play the serial killer and the ex-con.

On the stage you develop a character that's different from yourself. In a film they're always saying, 'Walk over here. Say this line. Be you.'

What I find most interesting about acting is transforming myself.

Any sort of role requires a certain amount of research and embodiment of the character and psychological investigation.

You try, as an actor, to wear a mask; you're serving a story.

Every time when I start preparing my character for a movie, I always try to make up and create my own background story for the role in order to fill it with life.

If I prepare myself for a character, for a role, I always try to understand her.

I really enjoy playing intelligent characters. I'm more interested in that than just emotional kind of Mum characters.

I've played several real characters, and I've always found it very difficult because you don't want to do an impersonation.

Once you are in the character, you should let your inner actor take over you.