Dorothy McGuire Quotes

When you start out on a project as an actor, you know, you approach the character from the standpoint of maybe writing a list - even if it's a mental list that you make - of the adjectives that the character has or that character possesses.

I'm a character and relationship guy, and even with the 'Saw' films, it's special-effects people's jobs to create these scary things. It's not my job. My job is to bring some sense of humanity to the character, no matter how evil he may be. The script is going to take me there.

I don't intentionally try to find the scripts with unattractive characters, but I think that if a character is described in a script as heart-stoppingly beautiful, and there's nothing else said about her, it just doesn't hold a lot of interest for me.

There are always practical decisions to be made about any character you're playing.

I think, on a surface level, people are surprised to see me playing such a passive role in 'Good.'

One of the things I really like about Victorian novels is the close anatomisation of character. People's gestures and mannerisms and the quality of their thought is very closely identified and analysed.

I would like to do a musical, if I could find a cool one. A song-and-dance role is closer to me personally than other characters I play.

As an actor, I've always found that my job is not to judge the content in which I've agreed to perform in. What I try to do is just find the truth in every moment that they've written.

My background is really being a writer's actor - that seems to be the way I work best, bringing out the best of writing. There's a whole range of acting skills, and some people can be astonishing with very poor material. That's not me; my skill is essentially unlocking the writing.

I read the script and try not to bring anything personal into it. I make notes, talk to the director and we decide what kinds of shades should be in the character.

I have a cheat-sheet for each one of my characters about their personality, the way they look, etc. So there is no possible way that I could have writer's block.

When I start thinking about a role, I read the script a few times and then let it sink in - and then take some time to develop how that character is going to play out and what he's going to do.

My favorite thing about acting is that I can play all kinds of different people. Frankly, I don't consider myself a very interesting person, so the characters I play are usually much more fun.

I used to audition for 'NYPD Blue' quite a bit, so I had this stock New York detective character that I would bring in for all their auditions.

It's a hard thing to do, to be given a script, and know that you've got to turn up on the first day of the shoot - generally without having had any rehearsal - and present a character. It's really baffling; it's incredibly hard to know how to begin, to approach it, other than just thinking about it.

One of my favorite experiences in my career, certainly one of the most interesting characters I've ever played, was Simon Lee on 'The Event.' That was a show I was quite proud of and a character I really enjoyed playing. It was one of the most three-dimensional characters that was ever written for me and that I'd ever gotten to play.

As an actor, I've always been interested in making sure I can perform the role and the lines in the way the writer intended.

As an actor, you are always someone else's tool. You can have a connection with them, and you can share their point of view, but ultimately, you are helping them reflect.

I feel character description from a book can mislead you and actually make you fall off course when you're representing a character using a script.

I took one acting class as an undergrad, and I loved it. I was in a very avant-garde play at UCLA about a closeted, married homosexual. I played his father.

The properties of people and the properties of character have almost nothing to do with each other. They really don't. I know it seems like they do because we look alike, but people don't speak in dialogue. Their lives don't unfold in a series of scenes that form a narrative arc.

Every role I get is always a challenge. I can read a script and say, 'Oh, I can do that!' and then when I start working on it, I suddenly realize that I had no idea what I was getting into. Then I have to really work hard!

For starters, I wanted to do an acting role in a movie that had nothing to do with the music business or in which I would play a singer or a songwriter. When I act, I don't even want to be thought of as Ne-Yo.

In general, between an actor and a character, there needs to be a falling in love, if you will - which I'm saying in quotes.

'Obvious Child,' the short, had a nice life online and a great festival run, but the short and the feature still stand apart from everything else I've done. I play a woman who you might meet in life. My other work is much more heightened.