Carey Mulligan Quotes

When you have great acting partners, you hope that your reaction to them is propels you deeper into your own character.

It's not really a preparation when you know the character that you're playing. It's not too difficult. It would be more difficult the first time, I guess.

It's like playing tennis, you play a different rally with different people. Every actor is different and the chemistry between actors is different.

The thing about being an actor is that you're acting. It's not that big of a deal of to play someone different from yourself.

Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience.

It is hard sometimes to see how other actors are working when you are working with them.

I actually think acting is a form of self-hypnosis. You have to be hyper, hyper aware of what's going on around you. You have to know where the lens is, what the shot is, and where you're moving. And then you have to trick yourself into an emotional state where you believe this stuff is actually happening.

The best advice my dad ever gave me is that acting is believing. Acting is not acting. It isn't putting on a face and dancing around in a mask. It's believing that you are that character and playing him as if it were a normal day in the life of that character.

Any actor who judges his character is a fool - for every role you play you've got to absorb that character's motives and justifications.

Preparation is definitely important, but it depends on the kinds of roles I do. Like, I completely identify with my character in 'Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani.' I had to be myself and I didn't have to actually prepare for it.

One reason we lasted so long is that we usually played two people who were very much in love. As we were realistic actors, we became those two people. So we had a divertissement: I had an affair with him, and he with me.

If I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance.

Acting is reacting, and it's always easier to react when someone is doing a good job.

What was really wonderful about the 'Doubtfire' shoot is that we had this really long rehearsal period in the beginning. That was a great time to get to know each other. We got to know each other and to create the family vibe. So we really didn't have to force it.

Acting is just common sense. It isn't hard if you put yourself aside and just do what the writer wrote.

You can't judge a character that you're playing, because then you're fighting against doing what the character's doing.

The thing about being an actor is that you turn into other people. You have to hide yourself a bit in order to let that other person come out.

We're very sure to stay in character, to experience the Sharknado as though it was real. That's what acting is.

I never do anything for the camera. It's my job to pretend the camera's not there. I'm never moving for the camera.

Acting is a work in progress for me. I just try to keep my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open, especially with the people I've worked with.

I was doing the work I was capable of doing with my own native talent, but when I looked at actors like Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean, Kim Stanley, and Geraldine Page, I knew that they knew something that I didn't know. I wanted to find out what that was.

If you've had intimacy in your life, you can be intimate onscreen. I mean, come on - I didn't know how to hold a gun, but I could play a cop.

In some ways, it's easier to be the lead. Week after week, scene after scene, the rhythms of filming force you to peel away a certain amount of artifice. When you're on set that much, there's a license to let the character emerge from the work itself.

I've played several real characters, and I've always found it very difficult because you don't want to do an impersonation.

The film I did with Bobby De Niro, 'The King of Comedy' - an awful lot came to me out of that movie because De Niro never allowed me any room to be crazy. If I had tried to play it the way I would normally play it and get hysterical, Bobby would punch me.