Michael Keaton Quotes

I did Shakespeare in college and the nerves I got doing Shakespeare are the same nerves I get doing 'Mad Men.'

It is something actresses need to go through and I think they look forward to being naked in a movie. I don't know why, but it is something you need to exhaust from yourself.

In the beginning, it was quite challenging because I had zero acting experience, and delivering dialogues was the most difficult thing for me to do. But after I began to act, I grew as an artiste.

When you start out as an actor, you read a script thinking of it at its best. But that's not usually the case in general, and usually what you have to do is you have to read a script and think of it at its worst. You read it going, "OK, how bad could this be?" first and foremost. You cannot make a good film out of a bad script. You can make a bad film out of a good script, but you can't make a good film out of a bad script.

I think it's very rare, as an actor, that you get to a script, or an idea of a script, and you go, "Oh, I just have to do that!" It fell into place very quickly.

It certainly helps, I think, with some actors to understand the process of acting. You see what extraordinary pressure they're under, there's a huge circus dedicated to a particular moment and they're got to deliver and it can help that you, even if empathetically alone, understand what they're doing.

Actors don't like to read what they're supposed to do.

I mean God knows I've done tons of schlock during the course of my career and stuff that's been very low budget and really pressed for time, but I've never had an experience like this. I kept saying to people, "How do you do this?" I said to Susan [Lucci], "How do you do it?" I don't recall exactly what she answered me but it was something like "Close my eyes and think of England. You just do it."

It's always hard as an actor I think to be just on the set and have the kind of confidence to be like, 'Yeah, I did that. That went perfectly. That's great.' That's more confidence than I have.

I like doing horror films. I think it's helped me as an actress because you have to run and scream and cry for so long and do ridiculous things in front of strangers, you sort of break down any barriers, you can't be embarrassed.

It's weird how an actor can read a script and think 'it's really good, it's really funny, that's going to be really dramatic...' and then you get there and say: "Oh, I have to get in it? I have to get in the water?! Are you kidding?"

It was great and I had fun that day even though I was so sort of pleased when it was over to get through it. I didn't realize at the time that usually they screen test a number of actresses for the part, but they only tested me. So I think they knew then they wanted me to do it, and I wish they told me because I wouldn't have been so nervous. That was quite funny.

Sometimes it feels weird being an actor surrounded by all these real fighters and you gotta keep your confidence high and do your best to learn it as quickly as possible.

I think, when people so strongly associate an actor with a character they play - but the main feeling is I feel very happy that I've been able to play somebody that people connect so strongly to. That's overall a very good feeling. There's the sweet and the sour, I guess. It does sting a little bit. Your insecurity as an actor maybe seeps in, but ultimately I think it's a very lovely thing. It doesn't happen that often. It's mostly good, I'm fine with it.

Working with any actor is like working with a monkey.

There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.

I'm dealing with a lot of scary things. I think you have to react to them. And you either laugh at them or you go insane.

I'm just an instinctive actress, I've never had a lesson in my life.

I've never been obsessed with celebrity or star-struck or anything. I met Penelope Cruz when we were in Toronto, who I think is a goddess and an unbelievable actress, and she introduced herself. As she walked away from the table I had to take a deep breath, which was strange because I've never had that with anyone.

They biggest man with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest man with the smallest mind-think big anyway.

I think good actors tend to be really funny.

In fact, when they wake up in the morning, they're Jack Nicholson or Robert De Niro or Josh Brolin. And it's built-in, but they think it's all this other stuff. But it's not. They'd be great if they didn't think about their part or if they did think about it.

We are rarely wrong when we act from impulse.

My dad didn't often bring me to the set, being an actor himself, so my infancy as an actor was wracked with a lot of giggles and nervousness.

I think I'm a better actor now. I mean, I really think I know a lot about acting now. But I didn't know a lot about acting then, in 80's, and I never knew how to be myself. I never knew how to relax and just play it from me. I was always trying to deliver a line.