Frank Langella Quotes

It is not whether you really cry. It's whether the audience thinks you are crying.

I've given every maid I've portrayed soul and heart.

The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings.

That's what acting is - it's about... having the courage to allow your audience into the private moments of your characters' lives.

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.

As an actor, I feel one should use his look to trick people.

The number one job of an actor is to be a character and never let the acting show.

There is a very thin line dividing characterisation from impersonation. I've to make sure I don't cross over into mimicry.

You have got to dig deep into your own spectrum while playing a character. If I am playing evil, believe me, I am bringing out the evil from within me.

An actor's job is to find variations of the same emotion in his being so that every time he expresses grief or joy, it doesn't look the same.

As an actor you bring some of your own experiences which can make things easier. You build off of it, but your imagination is always the best thing you have as far as creating things I think specifically for what that character is going through. But you're definitely drawing obviously upon things that you can connect to, and then you kind of mold the change that you're making into something that's right for the character.

For an actor, style comes last. You first have to implement the whole thing, but your style comes from the subconscious, which is the best part an actor brings to his work.

Johnny Depp's performance is quite remarkable. Sweeney's desire for revenge and the simmering anger and hurt that he feels carry the story forward, and Johnny finds the most remarkable variety within that narrow set of emotions. The intensity is at a boil all the time and he never drops it. It's real anger.

I was someone who was out of control and not to be worked with. It was partly because method acting was a new thing in Hollywood then and Marlon Brando had gotten through and Montgomery Clift had gotten through and James Dean but beyond that there wasn't really anybody.

One must never comment as an actor, never show that a character is shallow or vindictive, but let that be conveyed. I mean, none of us thinks of ourselves as being vindictive or shallow - perhaps we should.

I think a lot about the editing of the films when we're making them, partly because I studied that, and partly because if you think about being in love while you're supposed to be acting in love, there's nowhere to go. You have to focus on something else and then do what's being asked, and you might get some semblance of something interesting.

I think the secret of great acting is that you have to bring your imagination to the party. You have to have a great imagination and you have to bring it every day when you're working. Your imagination and your skills as an actor are what see you through, not what you're wearing or where you are.

As an actor, your main goal is to tell the truth.

I started acting when I was 13 years old and I feel like I really admire actors who are these kind of amazing shape-changing people, that they almost can turn themselves into other people.

Every character lives in ever actor and if you're doing your job right, you're just accessing that part of your fantasy life. I can kill someone just as quickly as I can have sex with someone. You can switch that instinct, no matter what - you can pretend anything.

I'll never approach a part in the same way again. Piaf taught me so much. In terms of my work, I think I'll enjoy it even more than before, because now I know that characters truly exist in their own right. I'll have a way to bring them even more intensely to life.

I wasn't playing Nixon's satirical stick figure. I was playing Nixon the man. As an actor, I felt I had to get to the deeply flawed humanity of the guy.

Acting is not a state of being ... but a state of appearing to be.

I'm in awe of how grounded Ms. Tyson is and how her performances can be different but the same. She can switch up the delivery, but it's still with the right intention. Her words are effortless in terms of their meaning and how she inhabits them. She's been doing Trip to Bountiful for four months, and it still feels real. She's pretty amazing.

What I love in working on film is just working with actors. It's one thing to write scenes alone over a keyboard and to imagine the actions and reactions in your head, but it's a completely other thing to hear actors speaking your words, to see their bodies bringing the fullness of emotion, need, desire and pain to life right in front of you. It's amazing.