Brad Dourif Quotes

My style is an extension of acting and an outcome of some serious lessons I picked up learning when I did theatre in my early days.

I had no real experience studying acting; I came to it having done other things for a living for many, many years, and I have this gigantic respect for experience and technique.

You know, I've never been much of a method actor. I feel like, with every project I go in extremely prepared and I like to have a good time.

'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 learned more doing 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' than I did during three years at drama school.

My first acting lessons were Shakespeare. The first time I ever started working with a coach was doing scenes from 'Measure for Measure,' which were tough dramatic scenes. And then 'Taming of the Shrew,' which required comedic timing. And that's the kind of stuff I love.

A solid theatrical education can only improve a screen performance. It gives you a fuller capacity to read a script and understand a character, for one thing. It's important to alternate between the two activities.

My real training as an actor was when I started doing theatre.

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.

Acting classes, I guess, are good and I would like to maybe sometime take one. But I would feel like I was learning someone else's technique. I like mine.

Most actors spend a lot of time training themselves to be an actor. And I kind of didn't do that.

I consider myself an actor that tries to have as many tools as possible in the bag. And I think that includes the method, then of course it includes some improv techniques, and includes all kinds of different things, because you never know when you're going to have to work on something and in what way.

I don't watch anything of mine much. I haven't gone to drama school, or college, either. I just like to watch other actors in action. I learned so much from working with De Niro. I'd be in a scene with him where I was supposed to be acting, and I was just watching.

As an actor just learning the craft, you literally do a scene with Jimmy Gandolfini, and you walk away a better actor.

I am learning the grammar of acting on the sets. And I am happy that way.

My favorite kind of acting scenes, or at least where I think people shine the brightest, are odes to Meisner technique scenes where people are face-to-face, and it's almost like a repetition exercise.

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

In 1954 I was on Broadway for five months in 'The Matchmaker' and went once a week to the classes of Uta Hagen, a theatrical guru whose teaching in retrospect illuminated the whole of my training at the Old Vic.

An actor will use every piece of information at their disposal, or a good actor will.

I was trained by Method acting teachers and we were taught that aside from whatever gift you may or may not have or the level of that gift, that you were obliged to know how to build a table. It's a craft. It's like being a ballerina or a violinist.

Because I didn't go to drama school, I didn't start in the business with any toolbox apart from enthusiasm and instinct. I'd throw everything at a part and sometimes realise that I had hit my limits.

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

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

I am a proud participant of the Spencer Tracy School of Acting: Know your lines, don't bump into the furniture.

In order to be a good actor, I'm a firm believer that you need to bring something to the table.