Blair Underwood Quotes

I want to take roles that challenge me and I want to like the script and obviously feel connected with the director because the director to me is so important.

Writing a great script - not just a good one, but a great one - is almost an impossible task.

It's fun to improvise, but I still think it's better to have a great script, you know, like a Charlie Kaufman script.

I would always rather do a mediocre script with a great filmmaker than a great script with a mediocre filmmaker.

I've loved doing 'E.R.' for the quality of the writing and the great people I get to work with.

I do think comedy needs to be a living thing, but I think without a great script and fully realized characters, you cannot keep it living. Otherwise, it just becomes long and rambling, indulgent. So I think you need both, frankly.

Any great character is the combination of a brilliant actor and the right writing.

I'm not really a director for hire. You read these scripts and go, 'This is a really great script, but Paul Greengrass would make this so much better than me.' I usually say, 'I know who would be good for this. It's not me.'

Actors aren't stupid, mostly, and if there's a sensibility and an aesthetic that a director's going for, if you're aware of that too, you can do things to help that.

If you have a script that's not great, if you have a great director, you can make a great movie, but if you have a great script with a director who's not good, never are you going to have a good movie.

First and foremost, I look for a great script. Then, the team that I am working with. Only then, we will be able to come up with a good film.

I am a director's actress in general - I depend a lot on them.

I'm a director's actor and go by what they say.

Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan and the slew of fantastic writers and directors have always geared me towards making a three-dimensional human.

I've been very blessed to have worked with two incredible directors - Barry Jenkins on 'Moonlight' and Ted Melfi on 'Hidden Figures' - and it was a collaborative effort in shaping my characters, Teresa and Mary.

You can't create chemistry. In fact, the chemistry between two actors is for people to see, sense, and judge. The only thing we can do as actors is to come on board individually because we feel the same kind of passion for a script and for a director to cast us because he feels that, as actors, we'll do justice to that part.

I've spent most of my life trying to make actors comfortable, which I think is 90 percent of getting a good performance.

That is what I seek, to essay interesting and challenging characters, which develop me as an actor and at a personal level to work with people who inspire me to push my boundaries and work on interesting scripts which which turn into refined work of art and leave a mark on me and the audience.

Each actor, every single time you work with an actor, you have to come up with the language that's going to serve them. And that's what allows them to give the performance that you want to nurture inside of them and what you think they're capable of giving.

Directors approach me for doing 'strong' women characters which, as an actor, increases a sense of responsibility to give my 100 per cent and even more for the faith they entrust on me.

I think each character is different for me, but I am a director's actor. So if I get the right vision and right guidance from my director, I think sky is the limit for me.

Directing is quite a nuts-and-bolts thing. It's a mixture of creating an atmosphere in which actors can feel safe enough to be dangerous.

Scripts and directors make great actors, not the other way around.

I thank my directors who keep faith in my acting credentials and give me roles like I did in 'Uyir' and 'Dhanam.'

Many directors are approaching me with good scripts. I will concentrate on production and music.