Amy Poehler Quotes

Well, I love acting, and I love acting quick.

I'm actually from Mt. Kisco, New York, which is in Westchester County, and when I auditioned for 'Dukes,' I told them I was from Snailville, Georgia, which doesn't exist, and I'd just graduated first in my class from the Georgia School of High Performance Driving, which also doesn't exist. But they bought it.

Comedy is difficult for an actor. But I think I have a good sense of humor and manage to make people laugh and make them happy.

There are two main jobs in acting - the first one is to be a good actor, and the second one is to convince everyone that you're a good actor.

Basically, the actor's job is to pay attention to the script.

I feel that I am a good actor.

It's funny, because in drama school, my greatest strength was my range. So my early career was like that: I played all kinds of different characters.

Soaps are the best. They really are. If you can do a soap, well, you can do anything. You have to learn pages of dialogue very quickly.

A good actor is someone who knows how to take the part and make it real and make it honest and be effective in it. If it's in a funny movie and, as long as they are cast in an appropriate way, humor will come from it.

When I worked with Robin Williams, now there is improv! He is just as funny as you think he is. We did at least five or six takes of every scene, improvising every scene differently. He was a riot.

There are certain actors who are very good at improvising, like Dustin Hoffman and Glenda Jackson.

I wasn't very good in my serious acting class. Sometimes people took our class so seriously, so I used to, sort of, make fun of people after class. And so a friend of mine said, 'Why don't you do the comedy thing.' That's how it all worked out.

Being an actor is actually pretty easy if you can memorize lines.

There are very few actors who are truly good at improvising; that's a real skill.

If I have an audition, I go to the audition in character. I'm in character when I walk in the room. I mean, I'm still sweet to everyone, but I'm very much the character.

I'm an actor. Whether I'm on stage, in front of a camera or a microphone, what I do is the same - although with videogames it requires a lot of imagination.

As an actor, it's amazing to get to create different characters.

I love 'Saturday Night Live,' and it's such a funny show. I don't know if I'm funny enough to be on it but definitely would be interested in doing it.

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

On 'Workaholics,' I feel like I'm just hanging out with my buddies being filmed, but on 'Mindy,' I'm around professional funny people who act. Guys like Chris Messina, who are the real deal. I watch what they do and put my own spin on it.

As an actor, you don't know what is going to come next.

As an actor, if you were to simplify what acting really is, it's about letting go.

Doing comedy for film is always a challenge because you are in the hands of the editor after the fact. I am hoping I can do some more soon, I enjoy doing comedy.

It's funny, because I was trained as a dramatic actor at New York's Colonnades Theater Lab in the '70s, along with Jeff Goldblum, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. People I worked with there saw a comedian in me. I'm still most at home in comedy.

I'm so into playing different characters, even when I was on Nickelodeon. I just observe.