Lorraine Toussaint Quotes

All I can say is if the part doesn't delight me in some way, or I can't feel any compassion for it, I just can't do it.

We are talking about someone who has lived. It must be honored in every respect. The fictional can take any kind of channel - according to the actor's marriage to the character.

It was a big deal to me to play characters and feel things and connect to somebody in a fake world.

I liken every character that I do to a relationship that you're in.

I sing as an actress. Whatever I'm singing about, I just become the story.

I think that acting involves doing your job so well that you are able to help the viewer identify with the character.

It's sort of the most important thing for acting, is to listen to the person you're dealing with.

Action is drama. If we cannot make the audience laugh, smile or cry with us, we are not actors.

Acting is all about truth and honesty, and the sensitivity that's capable of transporting you.

My job always is to play a person, not to judge her.

For a writer, they say write what you know. As a performer, you find it in yourself, in your heart. You relate to the character. You try to live it, try to have it be real for you.

When you play a doctor, you have to look like you can do it but you don't actually go and do it. It's not like you learn how to cut open somebody and go do surgery. You have to think of a human being and not play the idea of what that would look like.

I'm not saying that I am all of my characters, but for me to bring a character to life, you've got to be able to find your own truth.

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

I care about all the characters I play, and I get quite defensive about them.

I've always thought of acting as more of an exercise in empathy, which is not to be confused with sympathy. You're trying to get inside a certain emotional reality or motivational reality and try to figure out what that's about so you can represent it.

I always try to find something I admire about every character I play.

Acting isn't necessarily pretending. It's storytelling. It's giving someone your perspective on something.

That's precisely what we do as actors: try to convince the audience we are somebody else. And if you can do that, you are really doing something.

I don't have any training as an actor, but I guess I'm an intense pretender. When you read something over and over, it gets into you a little bit. You can't help but begin to feel it, even if you're a healthy person as I think I am.

I think good actors can sort of see into people and immediately you have a chemistry with them or not. It's like an affair with no mess. You don't actually consummate it, but you get to pretend, imagine what it would be like.

I get to play characters that kind of shock people and I enjoy doing that. I like characters that have meaning and get people in the heart. I want to be able to get people to cry or make people angry or sad.

It's great fun if you get a good piece of writing and you can pretend to be someone else, tell a story that needs to be told, make some kind of connection. I've always fancied myself as a leading man, but I really doubt whether anyone else sees me that way.

Sometimes you can just step into the character, and you get all your feelings and emotions just from sympathizing with her and being her. But then, other times, you just have to resort back to anything that you've been through in your own life and try to play that.

What I have always loved about modelling is the chance to play a part. I am quite shy naturally, but I like getting into somebody else's head space, understanding how people work and the psychology behind their actions.