Actor's Approach Quotes

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.

I don't do method acting. If I play a farmer, I'm not gonna spend 3 weeks on a chicken farm. That's a bit too much for me.

I'm one of those lazy actors; I like to take what the playwright wrote and work with that.

I'm a very physical actor.

No one is really a method actor, everyone has their way of going about it, preparing for it, but method is preparation, it's what you do to prepare. So my method is to read the script. Some actors' method is to read the script a hundred times and in the doing of it, to immerse themselves in as much of the reality as possible. Me, I believe strictly in acting. If I am out of breath, I'm out of breath. I ain't running nowhere.

I'm not what you'd call a Method actor.

When I do a character, I try to base it on someone I have met or an experience I've had.

I personally like to hang out with people; if I'm playing their mom, I'd like to go have lunch with the kid, and I want to try to spend as much time with people that I can while we are working together if we're supposed to have a familiar relationship with them, because I think it reads.

I'm not a comedian. I don't do stand-up. I don't tell jokes. I'm a comedic actor, and approach my work that way. The comedy comes through the character.

I'm a full-contact actor, meaning that I love to act in my toes and in my fingers, and I just try to keep it surprising.

Suffice it to say, every actor works differently. Laurence Olivier would put on his costume and when the wardrobe was right, he was in character. That sounds superficial, but it's true, and look at the results.

I never really absorbed myself in a role like some actors do.

I love to come in and play with a wig or glasses or clothes. I love using props. I'm from the Peter Sellers school of trying to prepare for the character.

I'm not a big method actor. I'm much more superficial.

I look at whatever the finish line is for the character and then kind of act backwards from that and play him in such a way so that that finish line is more rewarding.

There's some kind of actors that can radically change who they are from movie to movie. I've never really been that kind of actor. I enjoy changing the worlds that I'm in.

A lot of actors like to get themselves worked up, and I think from what I saw from Mr. Redford, he goes the other way. He relaxes into it.

I'm a technician. I don't go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.

I've worked with actors who treat the first two takes like rehearsals. And that's okay. If the camera is on you and we're doing a scene where I'm off camera, I'm treating that as a rehearsal.

I think everything happens organically. You mine for clues. It's all immersive, and stuff you can use comes out of that immersion. I don't really like to wear wigs in movies because I like to look like the character all the time.

From my point of view, when I was thinking about the prospect of [Michael Douglas] in this part, I wondered if he would go all the way with it. The reason I was concerned is that, oftentimes, actors - especially movie stars - when they're playing a character who might be perceived as unattractive or eccentric, will wink at the audience while they're doing it.

I'm a method actor as well as a method singer.

The British tradition, basically, is to go to the character. And the Hollywood tradition, shall we say, is basically to take the character to the performer.

For me as an actor, you always sort of want to bring yourself to a character in some way. You want to find a way to approach something in a way that's real and interesting, and also so there's some empathy there.

Whenever you're playing somebody who is, by all accounts, rotten, don't focus on the rotten stuff. That stuff will take care of itself. It's already in the script; the audience is already experiencing it without you having to add an extra feel of evil. Just play them like regular people.