Actor's Block Quotes

What I find sometimes that is tricky is if actors are using too much of their own life in a picture, in a scene, they get locked into a particular way to play the scene, and it lacks an immediacy.

I don't think there is much left that I can explore as an actor.

When they first asked me to do 'Hulk,' my first instinct was to say no because I didn't think I had anything to say with the character, especially when they said, 'Please do what you did with 'Daredevil,' whatever that was.'

Bob Balaban is so perfect that the first movie I did with him, I couldn't talk to him because I was so intimidated by him.

At one point, I had lost my confidence as an actor, and working again was tough. I started stammering due to lack of confidence. It took time, but things became better.

There are some days when you don't feel like being Alan Cumming.

I can't watch myself on screen without dying a little bit inside. And there are lots of moments when I think, 'What am I doing as an actor? I can't act!'

When you play a character for so long, it's easy to get disengaged, and it becomes mundane and routine.

I think what all actors share is that, somewhere down in your solar plexus, there's this fear that you're not going to be able to come up with the goods, that this is the one movie where you're going to look like a fool, and they should have cast someone else. And you feel ugly, and you've got three chins, and you've gained too much weight, and you're losing your hair, and there are so many better actors who could do this. But if you've got chops, what you realize is that everybody feels that way, so just show up and do the job.

There is always a hesitancy with actors, and inhibitions can get into the work, so you have to figure out how to make it feel so loose that you can do anything, and if it is not right, that is okay because we'll do it again.

I always panic on the first day of work. You can do all the Stanislavsky-backstory homework, but when that moment arrives and you are in the clothes, hair, and makeup of somebody else, and you're saying the words created by somebody else - I never know how to do it. It's a complete mystery to me.

I was working with Michael Shannon and I was like, "Oh man I'm having trouble with this scene." And he's like, "Well, then just open it up." I was like, "But, the mark?" And I was like, what's wrong with me? And he was like, "Dude, what's wrong with you?"

I find in film acting that however many years you have done it for, you can feel totally relaxed and at ease with the people around you, absolutely wonderful, then roll camera and a little part of you goes, 'Ugh'. It is learning how to manage that.