Mark Duplass Quotes

Joan Cusack is one of my favorite comedic actresses, and every part she plays is so different. She does the wackiest stuff and somehow it works. I like watching her a lot, and I think you can always go further and pull back. That's something I really have to work on.

Chris Hemsworth is like Christopher Reeve in that he can do two things: he can wear a big red cape without a shred of self-consciousness. But he's also funny as hell, and he's so sweet. So with all the fish-out-of-water stuff, he's so funny. So he does almost two jobs in a way.

At the core, I try to write characters who are real people with real insecurities, fears, hopes, and dreams, which is why hopefully readers can identify with them.

Hopefully, any character I play has an anchor in reality.

He who is incapable of feeling strong passions, of being shaken by anger, of living in every sense of the word, will never be a good actor.

If you can jump up onstage and make people laugh, shouldn't you also be able to inhabit a character?

I think that's what distinguishes Schmidt, really. In the movies now, so much of what is appealing to an audience is the dramatic or has to do with science fiction, and Schmidt is simply human. There's no melodrama; there's no device, It's just about a human being.

I don't want to make any general statements, but I feel like so many stories that are presented as being about humanity and human emotion are just so convoluted and overly dramatic and focus on these certain little things that are supposedly meaningful, but just don't really mean anything.

All of my favorite actresses are comedians at heart: Shirley MacLaine and Madeline Kahn, Diane Keaton and Debra Winger. And they are all amazing dramatic actresses, but everything they do is funny.

I like to think I've done a lot of different kinds of roles, but obviously I have done quite a lot of comedies.

I love Nicole Holofcener's films for their constant duality of humor and emotion and their focus on very real, if flawed, dynamics between funny people.

I like characters where there's something going on and something to make him real. If you find out what somebody cares about, all of a sudden, the whole world opens up.

I think really good drama comes down to real human emotion. That's what makes us all tick, and that's what I've always been drawn to when it comes to scripts is real human emotion and dealing with that.

In 'Fugly,' I play a very middle-class guy with whom anyone can relate. At the same time, playing such characters is not as easy as it sounds.

All women are strong, and we don't need to write stronger female roles; what we need to start writing is real women that have emotions and have real-life thoughts.

I think what actors have to do, what performers have to do to emotionally get to that place and have a camera and have your face 20 feet high on a screen, is such an incredible thing.

I think people need to understand the amount of emotions I can pull off. I want films I'm offered to have these dimensions.

There is a real affection for these human beings on these stage that O'Neill really had. Out of that affection comes a lot of humor, which is unexpected when you think of 'The Iceman Cometh.'

I have done some serious roles earlier and there have been some brilliant comedy roles in my career as well.

I would absolutely love to do something with Viola Davis or Meryl Streep. I just think both of those women fall so deep into their characters that you are no longer looking at the actresses, you are looking at the characters they embraced.

If I had to say the secret recipe for acting melodrama, I think it comes from myself in real life. I have a belief that when I do melo scenes, I try to make them less cheesy.

Even great actors who transform who they are still go to a really honest place; I think that's sort of that special skill that actors have.

I believe that attributing flaws to medical characters makes them not just doctors but something more. It makes them people.

I'd previously done 'Expelled,' and that was more on the comedy side, so I really wanted to challenge myself and see if I could actually do a drama.

I don't believe I did anything earth shattering as an actor.