Mike Leigh Quotes

Actors are always looking for ways to build a character.

The easier you make it look, the more difficult it is. Creating characters out of nothing, and making them interesting - and that's another advice I would give to writers.

There's a rule in acting called, 'Don't play the result.' If you have a character who's going to end up in a certain place, don't play that until you get there. Play each scene and each beat as it comes. And that's what you do in life: You don't play the result.

Unless you're playing a real character based on a real person, if someone else has done it before, you're probably better off not watching it as an actor. Otherwise you end up trying to copy someone else.

I still do a form of sense memory. It honestly depends on the job. It depends on the other people you're working with, how the other actor works. It's take a little from here, take a little from there.

The first thing, the main thing, about how I work is I need to understand the character.

My job, and what I've taken such joy in, is the craft of acting and of creating dynamic and authentic characters, and then finding a way to build them within the confines and with the support of the worlds that I've found myself.

I don't see any difference in the craft of acting, in film or television. It's absolutely the same. It's different storytelling, playing a character over multiple hours, as opposed to two.

I love working with actors. I love to see what they're going to do. There's just something very thrilling and satisfying with being involved with something, all the way through the process [making movie].

I always try doing a different character for every film so it's not just changing one.

You spend your life training to be an actor, observing people's characteristics so that you can design characters around what you've seen.

I never base characters on real people - you can get into so much trouble that way!

Working on camera is a different ballgame in the sense that it's far more intimate work, but the basics and the foundations of being able to create something that isn't necessarily your own instincts - is a character that you have inside your head - whether you're talking about television or film or theater, that still has to be the grounding work.

Transformational acting was the reason why I became an actor in the first place. Your hair and make-up and the costume are the tools that you have, and it makes you feel like that person. When you look in the mirror, you don't feel like yourself, and it changes the way you move. I love that stuff.

As a filmmaker I find it much more rewarding to work with actors who are classically trained. It's about the work and only the work.

Mike Leigh encourages you to choose a person that you know to base your character on. You write a whole list of people that you know and you go through that list in great depth with him. And then he chooses one of those people from your list.

I don't act in the way other actresses act, in terms of building or creating a character. I don't transform myself into the role, I invest myself in the role.

I had to focus and create a character in Bagger Vance, not just do my 'Will Smith' thing and get paid.

I find it easier to play someone who is so far from me because you create someone - you build this person based on the story and the script, with the director.

Look, every actor has a different way of preparing or creating a character and yeah, we all are from different backgrounds.

When you have a book as material as it is, it's a lot easier to create a character because you have so many resources to draw upon when acting.

I know, because I tried all sorts of ways of being in character, and the best way is to be totally straight.

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.

How do I act so well? What I do is I pretend to be the person I'm portraying in the film or play.

In every film, whether it's a fictional character or not, you create an idea of the character and for me I always do a bad impersonation to start with.