Terry Notary Quotes

I do whatever I need to do to get into character. Sometimes it's being incredibly quiet, and sometimes it's being loose and goofy.

As actors, when we keep working every day, after a point of time, we just know all our emotional cards and how to play them.

So many actors get caught up in their technique, and to be honest, I see it really getting in the way. I see them forcing things. I definitely do my best work when I'm free of that. But I think as an actor, I work really hard in preparing the roles.

I feel that one of the hardest things in acting is the way you need to switch your emotions.

As an actor, I always like some tension, some distance, between me and the character I'm playing.

Obviously, in theatre, you work chronologically, so you kind of know where your emotions are supposed to be, and you're always on top of things, and as an actor, you always know what's coming next.

It's more difficult for me to get into a character in the lead-up as opposed to leaving it.

It takes me some time to get into what I am doing - since I am not a trained actor, I don't have that skill. I have to think of what I am doing and how it comes through.

Before filming I'll be constantly thinking about my role at the back of my mind and slowly build up the intensity until I can explode on set. There is a very fine line between not quite getting there, and getting that bit too intense.

I had never really acted before, so I really didn't know what I was doing. The casting director for 'Euphoria' set me up with an acting coach in New York, and he completely flipped my world around. The way you learn to utilize your brain and your emotions really freaked me out.

Some people say, 'Do you have any theories on acting?' And I say, well maybe: I think you can start with zero and end with zero. You don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to go for the result.

All good actors are unpredictable, and a little crazy in a good way, because they feel more secure playing other people than themselves.

I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That's the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein.

I don't bring my life into a character at all.

I don't really prepare for each role the same way.

I think actors get too comfortable. I like being uncomfortable as an actor because it keeps you alive. I don't know, I think it's important.

There's a lot of romanticisation of the intuitive actor and method acting and all kinds of notions about getting inside a character and coming out from there.

I've never been a method actress; I've never been that person that wants to imagine horrible things happening in your own life in order to exploit them for your emotional being in the movie. I'm just not good at doing that.

I think that when you first read material or you first read a script or story and know you might be playing a part, it's important not to see yourself because it should be a challenge enough that it doesn't come easy.

I went through this realization that acting, at its heart, is the ability to manipulate your own emotions.

Ninety percent of the preparation we do as actors is just jive. It doesn't do anything.

I feel like everything you learn as an actor growing up is wrong. You're supposed to hit your mark, find your light and know your lines. Those are all things that just make things wooden, dull and boring.

At the end of the day, you're handing your performance over. If a director says after a take, 'You know what, try it just really angry. Just get furious'... you're like, 'Well, I don't know if I want to give you that because I don't know if I trust what you're going to do with it.'

Honestly, I'm a shallow performer. I just go with the text and feel my way around it. There's not a whole lot of shaping.

I go through a whole process with the actors first, building and creating characters, then I encourage them to sort of live in that character when they're in the screen.