Joe Cole Quotes

There's pre-production, and the second part is when you start rehearsal. Pre-production was a very large learning curve for me.

With any actor, if you know your character well enough, you'll know pretty much what he would say under any circumstance, or whatever situation might rear its head.

I learned one thing from De Niro: He taught me to listen. Nobody says anything strictly from the script. It's improvised. It was the best piece of advice I have ever gotten in my life. It has helped me through the past thirty years.

In acting, one should look at the film in totality. Improvisations should only be made keeping in mind the limits of a character. Always believe in team work.

I don't know what directing actors is all about apart from just casting well and then shaping their performances a bit, you know.

When I find those actors who are going to work that hard and collaborate that deeply, my role is to make sure there's a whole lot there for them to work with.

I know with Gary Ross especially, he kind of gave me pointers here and there, but he kind of let me become firm in any way that I needed, and he just let me try things and to explore what I can do with my acting. So that was very helpful.

My preparation is mainly just knowing the lines and getting in and knowing where your character is, knowing what it's about and having ideas that you can put in on the day.

Now there are certain things you have to prepare - like dialect and special skills. But in the moment, interaction between two characters on the page doesn't need - for me, I don't need to prepare that.

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

I always find that it's when a script is not detailed, then I have to do more work as an actor.

I do my independent stuff where it's real acting if you like. Intense, drama stuff. I love me actions.

I had an acting coach while I was doing the show and every week I could see my work improving. I really liked working on the show because I was learning new things every day.

You can tell when you watch a movie, usually, what the actors' experience was on the movie, because even the smallest of roles were interesting.

It's not good just to have life experience of film-making and that's all. It's hard to play a real person when you've been in jets and town cars for three years.

You learn an incredible amount doing theatre, not just about to behave.

My mentor Jon Simmons introduced me to the Stanislavski system, which is so heavy on back-story. So you write and write and write these back stories about a character and then you throw it away. So then on set, if it doesn't come, then you didn't do your work.

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

On 'Think Like a Man,' they got the best out of me because they allowed me to bring my own cadences and opinions to the character that I was playing. I think we got the best of that particular character.

I think acting really helps as a director. It's just no question, because you totally understand the acting process.

I learned my business in the theater and in television, particularly working with the actors. You can learn much more in the theater than directing a movie, because then you have no time when you are shooting a movie to really work with the actors. You have to learn this craft somewhere else.

As a director, I also get to sit and watch actors and learn from them in a way that I don't get to do when I'm just acting.

The truth is that filmmaking is not really an actor's medium; it's really a director's medium, so all I can really control is the character that I'm playing. So I try to look for characters that are interesting and engaging and different than what I've done before and hopefully it becomes a good movie.

I don't do a lot of rehearsal. I don't like rehearsals. I rehearse the day or morning. I spend one hour and a half with all the actors, and we go over the scenes, and we change it and change the dialogue, and we do a lot of things to it, but prior to shooting, I don't really rehearse.

Every role is challenging in its own way, but the most challenging roles are the ones that are badly written - then it's completely up to you to come up with something that is interesting to the story and myself as an actor.