Actor Challenges Quotes

Alan Ball, he's good at challenging his actors, I'll say that.

When you're working as an actor, you don't think that when you get out of school, it's going to be so hard to get a job. Just to get a job. Any job. Whatsoever. You don't think that people are going to see you in a certain way.

Right now, if you're interested in being a dramatic actor, they're not making that many just regular dramas. Movies have to have some other thing going on.

I've had the experience of seeing what makes life easier for an actor and for the crew, and what makes it feel bogged down and challenging. We're all really fortunate that we get to make our living as artists.

The biggest challenge to being an actor is, when you're not working, just being unemployed: the downtime and not having anything to do.

Taking on an iconic character is difficult, sure, people associate different actors with a character that you're playing, but there's something in rehearsing and developing a new character.

My preference is for good writing. It doesn't matter if it's for film or TV. Whatever. It starts with the writing. Even though I've had problems with writers, it doesn't matter how great of an actor you are. If the writing is bad, you're going to struggle.

It's a lot harder to do an ensemble because your energy is going in so many different places, and you have to cover everybody. You have to sort of split your attention.

The two things an actor dreads most are children and dogs.

I teach a lot of young musical theatre actors, and I notice that a lot of them say that they have a harder time connecting the classic repertoire.

It's very difficult being an actor and being away for a lot of time, but my sons haven't complained too much too often.

I think typically you'd start in a supporting role or an ensemble role, or maybe even an off-Broadway role. So to come into a lead role on Broadway, especially taking over a role that has been played by two phenomenal actors in the past, that is some large shoes to fill.

Actors have limited time. We also have a shelf life.

There's a personal side to me of challenges as an actor that I like to take on myself.

Any athlete or any actor who's preparing for a long time to step on a stage or step on a field or step on a movie set, who suffers an injury right before you're getting ready to perform or to execute - it is a massive challenge that's thrown your way that you didn't expect.

I barely read. I'm not a good reader at all. Rather than reading, I used to sit in front of the TV and watch black-and-white cowboy movies. I'm a painfully slow reader. It's really bad as an actor, because you have to read a lot of scripts. It takes me like an average of three hours to read a script, which is pretty poor.

Opening a play is just tough. The idea that actors are weirdly protected from it is a myth. If you imagine yourself having to spend two and a bit hours cooking bolognaise, remembering a whole major work by David Hare and speaking it at the correct moment between chopping carrots and stirring the onions in front of an audience - the normal human response is 'Please, can I go to the airport?'

I think the toughest thing about being an actor in a film is to be with a director who doesn't know what they want. And that can be really, really frustrating.

For every three scripts that you get through, one will be made, and that doesn't even necessarily mean that they're going to cast you in it.

There aren't a lot of great parts out there that are interesting for people in my category.

The hardest part about making movies is staying the exact same weight every day and looking the same.

Film and television were out. I was 24, and it went on until I was 36. For an actor, those are your years. I got a great urgency and education during the blacklist, and it made me grow up in a way I never could have before, and in very good ways, too.

I want to work as hard as I can. But I also want six kids! It takes a lot of courage as an actor to take time off for family. But family is everything.

When I used to do tours, I'd be anxious and nervous on the plane returning to New York. I now realize the reaction was because I was coming back unemployed. Actors are constantly being put to the test.

Well first of all, it's hard to shoot a movie and break for a long time and then come back and do, in a sense, one of the biggest scenes that each character had.