Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Quotes

As a director, you have to know what actors are doing. You're the one telling them what to do. The actors' job is to come prepared to the set, but sometimes, if they're beginning actors or people who are non-actors, you have to teach them how to act.

I've never had an audition like that before. They don't let you know about anything on 'Mad Men,' because it's a spoiler for everybody. I thought I was on the right track when I was cracking everybody up.

Matching character and actor is what a good director does.

As a director, it is important to understand the actor's process.

On the stage you develop a character that's different from yourself. In a film they're always saying, 'Walk over here. Say this line. Be you.'

Honestly, a lot of the time the character roles are the best roles.

I'm not a trained actor. I surrender to my directors, and they make me act.

The idea of acting on the first 'Halloween', it didn't really apply to my eventual work, working with actors.

I don't want actors reasoning with me about 'motivation' and all that bull.

I just love the process of working with other actors.

I work a lot; I love to compose, ponder, and take notes when preparing for a role. I cut all the scenes, collate the images, form the character and shape its personality, then I make meticulous notes and transcribe each scene on my notebook.

Basically, the actor's job is to pay attention to the script.

As for acting, I took drama lessons when I was in high school.

When I do film, I really take on roles and I take on characters.

To stand there and do nothing on film is probably the hardest thing to do.

I really don't know what I'm doing... I don't. It's terrible. I go in there and I learn how to be like the character and do the best I can, and that's all I really do.

I think acting really helps as a director. It's just no question, because you totally understand the acting process.

Creating a role is an interesting thing - each show or each situation is different.

I was used to theatre classes. I studied with my mother; she was a theatre teacher and directed, too, so it was very family-like. Then I studied with a great teacher in Paris, and she was wonderful; she pushed me, but she was a warm soul.

It's funny, because I was trained as a dramatic actor at New York's Colonnades Theater Lab in the '70s, along with Jeff Goldblum, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. People I worked with there saw a comedian in me. I'm still most at home in comedy.

I'm so into playing different characters, even when I was on Nickelodeon. I just observe.

I just happen to like the work. I like preparing for a role. I like reading. I like analyzing. I like literature. I like emotions. I like working with other actors.

Anyone who has been given the gift of being opposite an actor who gives and gives, it just makes you better.

Acting is really scary, but it's also challenging, fun, hard work. There's always an element of improvisation with every actor, even when something is really scripted.

Acting to me is always reacting.