Genuine Portrayal Quotes

Years ago I read an interview with Paula Fox in which she said that in writing, truth is just as important as story. Reading that interview was the first time I really understood that there's no point in trying to impress people with my cleverness when I can just try to write honestly about what matters most to me.

At the end of the day, my sole goal, when I go into any scene, is to try to be as honest as I possibly can, and then everything else is second. The most important thing for me is to just be as honest as I possibly can.

I was taught by a lot of great comedy writers to go for the reality in a role, and the comedy will come through.

I'm more focused on making a scene seem real as opposed to perfect.

Never lose yourself on the stage. Always act in your own person, as an artist. The moment you lose yourself on the stage marks the departure from truly living your part and the beginning of exaggerated false acting. Therefore, no matter how much you act, how many parts you take, you should never allow yourself any exception to the rule of using your own feelings. To break that rule is the equivalent of killing the person you are portraying, because you deprive him of a palpitating, living, human soul, which is the real source of life for a part.

I always try to approach things from the point of authenticity. I've done that for my short films, working with non-actors from the real environments where you go exploring and placing them into the cast alongside professional actors.

I like to make sure that I'm believable. If I don't believe me, then there's a lot of people that don't believe me, but if I can believe that I'm doing it, then I know the audience will, too.

Not that my life has been so crazy and exciting but, it just seems like if I can bring more of myself to the role. It's going to help keep it spontaneous and exciting, instead of thinking in terms of this box of a human that I have to slip myself into every week, which I tend to do more when I'm shooting a movie. On a television show, this is all kind of still new to me, doing many episodes of something, so I want to try to keep it as fresh and close to home as possible, so it doesn't get stale and I still like it every day.

I want people to do what they want to do because when they feel comfortable it seems to translate better on screen. It is when you put people in a straitjacket that it doesn't seem to translate very well at all. The individuals I work with are usually people I know.

When you see me play Jack, I want you to believe that that's a gay character.

I don't want a picture to look like something it isn't. I want it to look like something it is.

The only way you can truly control how you are seen is by being honest all the time.

I never set out to make any statements about a specific character, I just set out to tell what feels like is a truthful story, a person that you and I might truly encounter.

You put on a face for the public. The face isn't false; it's just another side of you. If it were false, you couldn't last. People want something real and natural, and if they catch you acting, you're dead. It has to look real. In order to look real, it has to be real, and I've always thought of the characters I've played as real people.

The trick [in comedy] is always to figure out how real you're playing it and how real it's supposed to feel. That's a hard thing to figure out.

The most significant piece of advice my father gave me early on about acting was, don't get caught acting. Really believe in what you're doing and then commit to it. Even if it feels uncomfortable, even if you feel that you're gonna look like an ass. It's all acting, but find the truth in a moment as opposed to just pretending you have and rather than trying to act your way out of it.

Well, I'm not a method actress by any stretch of the imagination so the best thing that I can do is be as real as possible and find whatever commonality in that character that I can see myself.

We ultimately have to find truth in the material, and I think that transfers onto the screen. Obviously there's varying degrees of it, and we don't get it right all the time [laughs], but I think when it feels grounded, it's because we recognize the truth in the material.

Image is what people think we are. Integrity is what we really are.

Weirdly enough, I don't like to pretend. I try to use things in me, and translate them into the situation and the characters, so it always needs to run through my own veins.

'Welcome to the Dollhouse' is great. Even though it's about a girl in middle school, to me, that feels like the most honest reflection of what being a kid around that age feels like.

I think everything needs to be played real, for reality's sake, for truth. And that is the drama and the comedy. When you do that, it's funnier. And when you do that, you really do hit the emotional beats. I do it the same way as I do a drama. I just play it for truth, and then maybe have a little bit of fun with it sometimes.

I cry at the end of every episode of "Girls." I'm just so overwhelmed by the truthfulness with which [Lena Dunham] conveys human nature.

I have to own something before I can say it, and I have to own it before I can sing it as well, emotionally. I only enjoy acting and singing if I am believing what I am doing.

The quality most important to me, in the films I make, is honesty.