Actor Transformation Quotes

A really great actor, in a lucky performance, can transform himself or herself. I've seen actors do that. But often it's a mechanical transformation, which isn't as interesting, and you've got to be careful how you go about something like that, I think.

The delineation between the actor and his part is a practical matter. When the camera runs, you want the actor to be the character.

I had great luck with Tim McGraw twice in 'Friday Night Lights' and 'The Kingdom.' I love finding off-beat casting and finding someone you know in one way and you reinvent them in another way. I like doing that as a director.

Casting Captain America is really casting two roles... Steve Rogers before and after the transformation from 98 pound weakling to perfect physical specimen. I can't divulge how we're going to do it, but the performance will be Chris Evans from beginning to end.

I have to say, working with Dan Stevens in 'The Guest' and seeing his transformation was incredible. Also Kate Winslet. Off set, she's loud and sweary, but when she walks on set, she has this calmness and is so centred.

I want to bring something different to every film. I get a bit tired of actors who kind of are the same character in every film that they do.

I think Danny Boyle's got it in his head that we all still look too young (to do a 'Trainspotting' sequel.) But, I mean, I don't look like anyone I play, anyways, so I don't really know where that comes from. Because, you know, you change yourself for the roles. I'm actually not Scottish, either!

On the very last day of shooting [of The Last King of Scotlang], I remember wanting to get the [Idi Amin] character out of me right away, as much as I could. You literally take a bath to wash him off you. Luckily, I went into another part not so long afterwards, so I was kind of able to push it away a little bit. But speech patterns, and little sounds, particularly colloquial things, like the way you ask questions or might respond, were sticking with me, probably because I'd worked so hard to make it a part of my everyday way of expressing myself.

De Niro didn't gain all that weight to play Jake La Motta just to prove he could get fat - every single one of those transformative things is grounded in the character.

If you can mix Hilary Duff and Gary Oldman into the same actor, that's my goal. I know it's strange to think about, but that's the goal.

It is as polar opposite as it comes for the man who was Edna Turnblad in 'Hairspray' to come back as Sweeney Todd.

I look up to Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. I'm a huge fan of their work. I also like actors who really transform themselves, like Joaquin Phoenix. And I loved Robin Williams growing up. He does comedy and drama so brilliantly.

Every job I've ever gotten has transformed me in some way as an actor.

In 'Requiem for a Dream,' the director Darren Aronofsky's adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.'s lower-depths novel, Jared Leto has lost so much weight, he looks like another person altogether.

The actors I respect are the real character actors, who are the real chameleon actors that completely change from role to role. I love Peter Sellers, Alec Guinness and Gary Oldman. They tend to be British, I guess. People who really disappear and transform, I really like that.

The great thing about performance capture is you can go off, and then, without changing costume, you can become another character.

I did eight months of training for 'Wimbledon,' and then, by the time I finished the movie another four months later, I was like, 'That's me. I'm done with tennis.'

There is some mysterious thing that goes on whereby, in the process of playing Shakespeare continuously, actors are surprised by the way the language actually acts on them.

A lot of male actors are method actors and they become the characters which they both were.

I never had a thing for movie stars. I was into the guys who could transform. Sean Penn. Daniel Day-Lewis. The ones who privileged the craft.

Coming from 'V' into 'Homeland' was a really big change and the best gift as an actor you can get - which is to transform so drastically from one genre to the next, from lizard to human being!

What I love about him [Robert Rodriguez] is that he understands that actors are transformational. It's a natural instinct to ask people to do what you've seen them do before. Until you see someone do something new, you don't know what they can.

It's my privilege to work with an actor like Vikram who gets into the skin of the character he is playing, so much so that after the shoot it takes him quite some time to get back to his real self.

I was blown away watching Michael Keaton act because he was such a maniacal, evil person on set. He takes on a totally different life, and it was so amazing to watch him work.

You can't believe Russell Crowe is the same actor who won an Oscar one year ago for Gladiator.