Jeremy Renner Quotes

I love playing different characters all the time, so I'm concentrating on doing other stuff.

That's what I love about acting. There's never a set role. You can be a firefighter, you can be a baseball player, you can be whatever you want in the acting world. I think I've found my calling.

As an actor, my main focus is finding good writing and attacking a good role.

I'm attracted to roles that are unpredictable, and if I can get my hands on something like that, I'm thrilled. I like performances where you don't know what's coming, moment to moment.

I enjoy doing everything, comedy and drama. I just look for the characters really and what they offer.

I don't choose characters according to looks. I'm comfortable doing both glamorous and non-glamorous roles.

As an actress, you go where the stories are. I don't really care where it's seen, at this point. I just want to tell good stories and do good roles that I haven't done before.

I honestly think I'm just an actor. It doesn't matter the medium. I can go on stage and be happy, I can be on TV and be happy.

There are many actors I admire, but I always look at people who have done a variety of roles - people such as Simon Russell Beale or Ralph Fiennes.

An actor is an impersonator; he plays many different roles. If you played the same role all the time, God - that'd be a boring career. When you take on different roles and become a different person, that's called acting... It's a challenge.

One of my favorite actors is Javier Bardem, he always challenges his previous roles, and basically does the unexpected.

It's your job as an actor to fill out the blanks. I love doing that. To fill in the bones.

If I ideally can, I'd do a comedy, and then I would do something where I'm a mental patient, and then I'd go back and do a comedy so I can continue to express myself in different ways.

I'm always envious of the actors who get to come to work every day and really grow deep roots there, but it is really fun playing lots of different characters.

Looking at acting, in the movies or the theater, and the way I like to look at it, it's just an extension of childhood play... Kids play and imagine in a very intense fashion and they don't need any director telling them, 'You really have to believe in it.' They believe in it completely.

I don't mind being identified as any character as long as I'm doing a good job as an actor. I have done all kinds of roles - from an editor, judge, police officer, murderer to a corrupt businessman.

That was the fun of acting, being a blank canvas you could transform into the character - Indian princess, 20s vamp, Mother Courage, Oxford don, 94-year-old wife.

I don't have a philosophy for choosing roles. Sometimes, it's just, 'This might be interesting; that might be fun to do.' There might be interesting actors or directors in the project, even if the part is not important. And then sometimes, you need the money.

Acting is a strange job because your control is very limited.

I'm an entertainer, so in whatever form I entertain... The thing about being a rapper is that you have more control over your form, whereas with acting you have to compromise a lot.

You know, back in acting school they always teach you, 'Make bold choices and look for activities that are interesting.'

I'm a performer. I push the envelope, I work in a very uncontrolled manner onstage. I do a lot of free association, it's spontaneous, I go into character.

When an actor plays a scene exactly the way a director orders, it isn't acting. It's following instructions. Anyone with the physical qualifications can do that.

So what's so enticing about doing a play is that you get to do that thing that got you into acting in the first place... There's a real attraction to being able to play, to just play. And that's something that theater affords you.

I find that comedy is my specialty, but drama is slowly starting to move up in that rank. I've always liked playing a character that has depth and that I'm able to bring my own niche to.