Cate Blanchett Quotes

Acting in a scene is easy.

In theatre, you rehearse for months and then perform. That way, you're totally in-sync with your character, the other characters, and the story.

That's the difference between working on film and working in a play. In a play, you work on it, and you live in it and develop it and make it happen.

Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls. The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That's Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that.

In a drama, you don't make a fool of yourself.

Live-action is more fun for me, because you're acting with people. When you do voice-acting, many times you're not even in the room with the person that you're acting with.

I just arrive, they hand me a script and say, do it.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

When people embrace character, there's latzie. It's the stuffing of a scene that's not written. It's not in the stage direction and it's not in the words. When people embrace character, it informs their living, breathing moments in a scene so well.

As soon as you get two actors in a room and they're locking eyes, they're doing a scene.

You have to be really open to your acting partners and believe in the story.

I like doing a lot of research, and then you get there, you're in wardrobe, and then you're just reacting to what the other person is doing. The other actor is reacting to what you're doing, and it's this great back and forth. Because you've done all this research, you can use some of it or throw a lot of it out. You can get lost in it.

I walk into a scene, and I do the scene. That's my job. I don't have an objective. I have the words, and I have whoever I'm playing with.

Acting is a sport, like a game of tennis, and you and your opponent take turns setting the level of play.

When you do a drama, you are challenged to trust your inner voice much more. Because when you put a comedy in front of even a 25-person screening, you know whether it's working or not. The barometer is overt.

If a scene is three pages long, quite often people break it up and do a page, say 'cut' then move on to the next bit, they do it in cuts. I don't really like doing that; I like to go through it all in one organic run, then give notes afterward. A little bit more like theater.

Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls. The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That's Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that.

Acting is constant exploration.

I think that sometimes in theater, I don't prepare much beyond going to the rehearsals.

I just love working with actors in general.

You might only get three takes to do a scene; sometimes it takes longer than that to find those moments.

In theatre, once you've got the character and you've got things together, you can relax into it. Film has a different feel - you don't get that through line of not stopping. Theatre is like a snowball gathering momentum and getting bigger, whereas in film, it's a bit stop and start - but you do tend to adjust to that quite easily.

When you do a play, you have all this time to rehearse and grow into the character. In television, even though you're waiting and waiting and waiting, once you're actually on set engaging in the scene with another actor, time is of the essence.

For me, rehearsal is only about blocking and pacing; it's not about performance.

Acting is completely different from the standup world. You have these 12- or 14-hour days, but you have a great time doing it. It's like hanging out with your friends.