Ray Wise Quotes

I've got a range as an actor! There was a time I played dramatic leading men.

I am really not of the school of naturalism. I like style, and you can use more style in theater than in film roles. I love to sink my teeth into a part.

It was my first straight dramatic role, and the most adult, intelligent one I have ever played.

In films, you are a commodity. You are a look, something that the camera really likes, something that has struck an audience in a certain way. It's not really so much about transforming yourself the way actors do onstage. I think there's a difference between the skill of acting in movies and onstage.

And I've been acting for 39 years, so I define characters differently than I did in say Miami Vice.

'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.

I was a Chicago theater actress until my early 30s, so I got to do a lot of meaty stuff in theater.

It took a while to decide I wanted to do Hamlet. It wasn't that I was daunted - I'd been acting professionally since my mid-20s and had some pretty big Shakespearean roles under my belt by that stage, at 32: Petruchio in 'The Taming of the Shrew,' Edgar in 'King Lear,' Antony, Richard III. But when it came to Hamlet, I hesitated.

I don't believe in overcooking the actors too much. Especially when it's a real performance that I'm looking for.

I want to play King Lear, Macbeth, Benedict, Coriolanus. I wouldn't mind doing Hamlet again. Well, I'm a little old. Perhaps I can rub Vaseline on the audience's eyes.

Stage acting lets you feel the character a little better, but in the movies, you have to keep regenerating your energy level when shooting scenes over and over again.

There is no such thing as playing someone else's character. Every actor takes a character and makes it his/her own while enacting it on screen.

When you step inside a set and transform into a character, it's your first brush with that role. It doesn't matter who you have worked with. Every character will be a first in your life as an artiste.

I don't think I was bubbly in 'Oohalu Gusagusalade.' It was a real character.

I am not that cute. However, because I had played so many cute characters, I am starting to be influenced by them.

Every actor has a method.

Forget about hair or our appearance. My acting style is different from my other colleagues.

I've played heavy characters in my first two films.

I performed in plays like 'Ashwatthama' and 'Andha Yug.' It was hardcore theatre.

Without 'Santini,' my life as an actor would never have had any of the depth or, at least, nothing like the depth it has now.

I would say I was not working in the real sense in 'Paiyaa.' After doing very heavy scenes in my first two films, in 'Paiya,' I was romancing a girl, talking all sorts of funny things, and doing all light things just as if I were not acting!

Most of my acting has been for fantasy-based shows like 'A Korean Odyssey.' But for 'Vagabond,' it is totally different.

It is a treat to do scenes where you silently enact.

A career in film didn't seem like something I could attain. Whereas I grew up next to New York City, and I spent my life going into New York City seeing plays, and I was a theater actor in school. Acting on the stage felt really natural to me, and I liked it, and I wasn't terrible at it.

Acting in particular is a fun job when you have a good script. I don't know about acting when you don't have a great script. I'm gonna say that's not a great job, it's kind of a dumb job. But when you have a good part in a good script, it's the best job, in a way.