Nithya Menen Quotes

Some actors get by with behaving, not acting. You've got to sell the effect. I act more in the 'Nightmare' movies because it's not like me. I'm acting, not reacting.

Nobody is more truthful when he's acting than De Niro.

Good actors, you always know what they're thinking. That's why they're good actors.

That's what acting is. You're pretending to be someone else.

By being an actor, one can explore various personalities of a human being, be that person, behave and live that person's life, and then you are back to your normal life.

All you've got to do is turn up and have a few facial tics and be a lunatic and throw someone around the room or blow their brains out and people think it's good acting.

You take what you know, and you put it through your own prism. If I play characters that break down or cry, it's Gary Oldman crying; it's not the character crying.

I act according to the requirements of the character, and if I try to play the role, then I play it truthfully. In my daily life, I'm a laid-back, peaceful guy. I'm just doing my job to act.

There are movies where actors aren't characters but movie stars, being cool beyond belief throughout the whole movie. That is what it is. And we reveal ourselves when we act, very often without noticing. But if I can manage to do a character without showing anything of myself, then that's the ultimate goal for me. No leakage.

Some actors are brilliant character guys. They submerge.

Acting is not just impersonating your character.

It was very difficult acting. I feel it is a very tough job to portray someone else's character and to behave like that on screen.

When you watch me on the screen, you should not be able to recognise me. If people say, you're a natural and an organic actor, that's an insult. If you're being yourself all the time on screen, that means you don't know how to act.

As an actor, I think it's always important to separate yourself from your characters because, when you include yourself in a character, you're taking a liberty that you don't really have unless you're life is that incredibly close to the character.

Transformational acting was the reason why I became an actor in the first place. Your hair and make-up and the costume are the tools that you have, and it makes you feel like that person. When you look in the mirror, you don't feel like yourself, and it changes the way you move. I love that stuff.

A lot of American actors I work with are in character all day long. You can't talk to them. It's Method and the whole thing.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

I had to focus and create a character in Bagger Vance, not just do my 'Will Smith' thing and get paid.

The main thing is the ability to control your instrument, which, in the actor, is yourself. Look the way you want the character to look. Sound the way you want the character to sound. Once you've trained the instrument to do what you want, you're in control, and you're free.

When actors are talking, they are servants of the dramatist. It is what they can show the audience when they are not talking that reveals the fine actor.

I think you can really tell a good actor if you can put a camera on them and they can just talk and emote and react and you don't have to keep cutting away from them, because they are the language and the behavior. It's all a tour-de-force performance.

Yeah, I think the common denominator - and this is probably going to sound like Acting 101 - but the common denominator is belief in the character in the moment.

For me, personality acting is not that interesting. I don't want to just be myself.

It's true I have a hard time with the notion of creating a character. And I feel it's a limit. I'm always really impressed by actors who are able to construct a character, like Johnny Depp.

I always enjoy impersonating my characters in the first-person singular.