Paul Dano Quotes

Acting is an expression of imagination. No firsthand knowledge is necessary.

Everyone seems to think they know what acting techniques are. Techniques just help you get to a certain place, but if the thing is happening just by itself, you don't need those techniques.

It's a fine line. If you withhold too much, you come across as wooden - as I've often been described in some movies. Fair enough. I believe that the best performances are the ones that an audience has to search for.

As an actor, the only thing you have is your instinct and your imagination.

Every time you get on a stage or in front of a camera, the whole exercise is about imagination. You're constantly depicting something that doesn't exist, and trying to find the reality of it. Once you settle on that premise, everything else is a matter of degrees.

Everything, I think, about acting is based on imagination.

It's bad writing, however naturalistic it's written, that's where you have to do your best acting.

The most fun you can possibly have as an actor is to walk that line between what's real and what's interesting.

Acting isn't necessarily pretending. It's storytelling. It's giving someone your perspective on something.

Good acting is all in the writing. If it isn't on the page, then it really won't make any difference. You cannot act on force of personality alone.

My approach as an actor has always been the same, in that the greatest gift that you're ever going to have is your imagination because you're not going to have all life experiences. So you draw on things that are sort of close to it but you spend your time expanding on it or drawing something specific on whatever your situation is.

What I have to do as a musician is do everything that is not on the music.

The play is not in the words, it's in you!

Sometimes, if you leave yourself open, an actor can bring nice nuances to a character.

Acting is an art form. If you are not creating something that's unusual and informative and at least has the possibility of being illuminating, then you are not into it as an art form.

Drama read to oneself is never drama at its best, and is not even drama as it should be.

Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.

There is something about acting that's mysterious and magical because there is only so much I can do to prepare, and then I have to just let go and breathe and believe that it will come through.

Modelling is only about the look. In acting, it's the feel that matters.

For me, it's just acting. It's pretending. The best actors are children, and children don't do research. You never see a child going, 'I'm wondering about my motivation here. How can I do this toy? How can I do this train? I don't feel train.'

Good actors can sort of see into people and immediately you have a chemistry with them or not. It's like an affair with no mess.

Essentially, I'm untrained, so I just go with my imagination and try to put myself as solidly as I can into the shoes of whatever person I'm going to be playing.

Acting is just being a man. Being human. Not forcing it.

The closer a part is to you, the harder it is to play. Anything else is just imitation. If I'm playing a Russian countess, I get the hat, the accent, the outrageousness. Easy. Playing a murderess? Perfect.

I think when you take away all, like, the premieres and press stuff and all the special effects, then you just come down to the fact that it's all about acting, and I think that has been the best bit for me.