Betty Gilpin Quotes

You have to carry so many archetypes as an actor, especially as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed one.

That's what acting is. You're pretending to be someone else.

Character acting is a much braver pursuit than a guy who runs around and intermittently clenches his jaw muscles.

How do you play 'righteous'? Do you just kind of stand up straighter? What does that mean as an actor? You don't really play a quality.

I'm pretty much of a physical actor.

That's what acting is about - for me, at least - tackling different personas and characters.

Acting is very physical, even when it doesn't appear to be. It's about the arc of your body's language through a film.

To be a good actor, you need to be able to emote with your body.

I use my hands a lot while acting.

The darker, more complex and emotional the part is, the easier it is for me. But I don't take any of that stuff home with me at the end of the day.

Everybody thinks performance capture is about thrashing around and doing a lots of movement, but it's actually about being able to contain and think and be believed in a close-up, as much as anything else.

Obviously, doing TV and doing theater are completely different because they're two totally different mediums. On stage, you worry about your voice and how you move physically. On TV, something like an eye twitch is what they could be looking for from you because it's so contained.

Creating a character and living truthfully through her is a whole different ball game. It's all part of the same person but it's a much newer medium for me.

Some of the best actors in the world are very exterior actors, Anthony Hopkins being one of them. He knows exactly how to turn his face to get a certain expression. He knows exactly what to do with eyes, and with his voice. It's very exterior.

I was lucky enough to be able to do comedies, dramas, completely different parts. At the beginning, when you start you have a fantasy that you could be somebody else. Which is absurd. That's part of being an actor. It's your voice, it's the way you move, it's your body, even if you transform it, you play with it.

I usually can find a way to do a character to make it real and work. But sometimes it's a struggle sustaining that, because there's such a level of personal involvement and personal, physical, and emotional distraughtness.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

When you perform, you can convey emotions differently, and your look can reflect each of those emotions.

To be unrecognizable in movies is the biggest compliment that anybody can give you.

There are times when I consciously give the character something physical - a walk, the way he sits, how he talks, or his lack of physicality, which is like a physicality.

Once you don't smile on film, they say, 'Let's have that bloke who doesn't smile.'

When I go from a role with heavy prosthetic makeup, which I've done quite a bit of as well, and then do a role where I'm not wearing any, I have to be conscious of toning everything down. Because when you're wearing prosthetic makeup, of course, you have to really move your face a lot more to convey things through the makeup.

I don't exactly set out to only play creepy characters, it's just that a lot of those roles come my way.

Every time you play a bad girl or guy in a movie, you really come from a place of pain.

I was that kid who was always practicing crying or falling asleep or being angry or being excited. I was that weirdo in my room making faces.