Asa Butterfield Quotes

I've always had a process that I do before I even get to set or go to the location. I work privately, and it almost feels like therapy between me and who I'm playing. So I have this inner life that's there and it gives me a confidence, too, that when I'm playing the role I know every question.

As an actor, you're lucky if you get a month before a project starts. There are times when you get a day before a project starts. So to be able to really sit and inhabit that mind and the story is really beneficial, and it really helps for me to be able to then compartmentalize as we're shooting and detach and go somewhere else.

If you're getting ready to do a really emotional scene then, right before it, you're probably not going to be outside playing basketball.

A role needs a certain tone, so your own tone also changes. It's not like I lock myself up in a room to get into the zone. It is based on what I am feeling, because the minute you try too much, weird things happen. Of course, for an intense role you need some silence, and you need to do a lot of thinking.

I think one of the mistakes actors make is we're so focused on what we're going to say.

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 think is very beneficial to relax yourself so that when you are doing it you are not staggering for lines and your concentration is not on what I am going to say - but the scene itself, the character that you are talking to.

I have to do some mental gymnastics as an actor sometimes, to remember not to let certain things in.

I've tried to shut myself off as much as possible from the hype of 'War Horse,' and just thought, 'OK, I'm going to focus on the character and focus on the story and focus on what I have to do.'

I don't ever recall being nervous before performing because I've already stepped into the shoes and the clothes of the character.

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

I do enter into character on set, but I can step out of it.

I'm not the kind of actor who goes into exhaustive research for each role.

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.

When I was a younger actor, I would try to keep it serious all day. But I have found, later on, that the lighter I am about things when I'm going to do a big scene that's dramatic and takes a lot out of you, the better off I am when I come to it.

You know, I've never been much of a method actor. I feel like, with every project I go in extremely prepared and I like to have a good time.

The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful - my personal life suffers.

If the script's good, everything you need is in there. I just try and feel it, and do it honestly. I also don't learn things for auditions, because I feel like it's just a test of memorizing rather than being real. Maybe every other actor would think that was terrible, I don't know. But it seems to have worked for me, so far.

As an actor, you wouldn't be able to play a character if you were worried about the reaction to what you're doing.

Any acting job that I ever got, I always treated it like I was a neophyte; I didn't know what I was doing, and I was going to work just as hard as I do on my stand-up.

It's interesting to play a role where you don't really have to preoccupy yourself with any need to convince yourself that you're not acting.

I try to create as many circumstances outside of set that help me fall into character when I get onto set.

I would go into a place that was quiet and isolated and think about how my character would feel in the situation, considering who he was and what he had been through. I would think about that even up to 30 minutes. And when I felt the character was in my body and I had left, I could walk onto set or into rehearsal.

The play is on top of me all the time, and I am constantly thinking about it. Even when I leave the theatre, I'll mumble the lines to myself or think about the way the character walks or holds himself.

I have to believe in the character to perform it.