Daniel Handler Quotes

The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you're in front of a camera or when you're on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time. That, to me, is not acting.

The more you are known, the more difficult it is to hide behind characters.

Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.

It's very easy to confuse Sean Connery with James Bond. Sometimes in the entertainment industry, people believe the cake is more real than the baker.

When I'm onstage, I'm acting.

People tend to think that's your life when you're playing a role.

In my show I announce, 'People say Lady Gaga is a lie, and they are right. I am a lie. And every day I kill to make it true.'

Reputation, like a face, is the symbol of its possessor and creator, and another can use it only as a mask.

Who speaks is not who writes, and who writes is not who is.

Like someone once said, "If you're going to play the part, you better wear the eye patch." You need to perform the function, you know.

At times, I come across as crude or crass, that irritates you when I come across like a Neanderthal or a babbling idiot at times. But I like to be that person. I like to show you all that person because that's who you come to see.

When a man puts on a Character he is a stranger to, there's as much difference between what he appears, and what he is really in himself, as there is between a VIzor and a Face.

Every character, no matter who you play, at times is pretending to be somebody else. People have a public face and a private face.

I've been doing this since I was 10 years old, inhabiting different people and playing different roles.

And that's just what I'm saying. I would never want to be like certain people, who change the way they dress, go out in disguise, wear a big floppy hat and dark shades. I would hate that.

Roles make the actor.

Singing is about telling a story. When you are onstage, you get to be your own self... When acting, you're someone else.

There is no way you can get people to believe you on screen if they know who you really are through television.

I'm not really good at fun-to-know, human interest stuff. We're not 'celebrities', whose life itself is a performance. Good or bad or ugly, we are our words. They're what people meet.

One of the great things about wrestling is how it interrogates this silly idea that you have one authentic self.

When playing a role, I would feel more comfortable, as you're given a prescribed way of behaving. So, both Facebook and theatre provide contrived settings that provide the illusion of social interaction.

I think I'm always adopting a persona. That's how I look at pop music. I don't feel like I have to be myself. I feel like I have to be true to myself, but I don't have to show an exact picture of who I am.

I can't take the theater side out of myself.

We are always on stage, even when we are stabbed in earnest at the end.

I feel like I'm kind of faking something if I'm talking as myself and putting on an accent.