Gregg Henry Quotes

You have to be very specific on the technical part of the acting.

Everyone brings their own particular skill set to the job, and acting training can work for a lot of actors, and it can't. I've seen a lot of really good actors go into acting schools and then come out a little bit corrupted.

I studied technique for ten years, from age 7 to 17. I guess you could say I went more on the Stanislavski side than the Meisner side - there's always that wide divide among actors when it comes to technique.

I try to create as many circumstances outside of set that help me fall into character when I get onto set.

My acting coach makes the impossible accessible.

Every actor comes with their own experience, method, methodology.

Your primary tools, as an actor, are observation and imagination. You can pretty much get everything you need from that, and you do. It brings back that element of pretend.

'Hollyoaks' is where I learnt a lot of the craft, being in front of a camera six days a week. That's certainly an experience you don't get in drama school. It invites you to be comfortable in front of the camera.

I thought acting was all about natural instinct but I've realised, through working with so many talented actors on 'Wild Swans' and 'Run,' that I can see the training. That's why I am back at drama school.

I've had probably way too many acting classes, and you try to sort of shed - I think over a period of time, you'll shed what doesn't stick with you, and you'll hang onto those things that do.

I trained at the Lee Strasberg Institute at Tisch, which is a huge foundation for young actors. They teach you their methods and give you the sense that acting is much more tangible than most people think. I think there's a mysticism of what acting is, in the fact that it's this ungraspable, spur-of-the-moment thing that nobody can understand.

I think as an actor you're always learning, you're always trying to experience more things.

I try to be like a sponge when I'm around other actors, picking things up about the way they work and how they do things.

I learned how to act working in TV.

From an acting standpoint, when I was a kid, I thought I knew everything there was to know. As the years go by, this craft becomes more intensive as I get older. You realize how much more there is to know and to learn, and how much better you can get, if you really work at it.

I don't think I've ever watched a movie to prepare for a role.

My favorite acting books are Stella Adler's 'The Art of Acting' and 'Sanford Meisner on Acting.'

When I first started acting, I knew that you have to learn different skills for different roles.

Jeff Bridges taught me a lot about how to keep a scene fresh.

I find acting conservatories really important. I've gone to four different ones, and all of them provided totally different tools for me.

I'm not a method actor; I hope you know that!

You can be in an acting class all you want, but you don't fully learn until you get off that stage and in front of a camera.

I'm formally trained, I don't know what classically trained really means. I've worked with Sanford Meisner. And I've worked at Circle Rep with Marshall W. Mason and Lanford Wilson and some really good people. I was lucky. I had a lot of really good influences.

It's a funny thing. You sort of never figure it out with acting. You're always learning.

I got my training here in Chicago at the Goodman School Of Drama, and a lot of my personal work is usually internal work and stuff. Everything else that goes on is icing on the cake - your wardrobe, your makeup, whatever else you have to do.