Role Interpretation Quotes

The basic skill of an actor is, in fact, empathy, and that's maybe not a skill, it's a disposition. I am an assistant storyteller. I enjoy feeling useful to a team effort. It's my way of finding a use for myself, a utility in this world.

I remember watching Cate Blanchett in 'Elizabeth' and feeling like for the first time - even though that time period wasn't happening now - that I believed that role.

As an actor, you can't just imitate someone. You have to get under her skin.

Even if I play a similar role to one I've played before, I will never play it the same, I'll always try to do something different with it.

Each character has their own challenges. The challenge to doing one scene is your whole history of who you are and your relationships, you only have this one shot.

There are some similarities, I think, with all the characters I play. I'm not a guy who sees the desire to transform with each part; I'm not a piece of clay.

As an actor, you are always someone else's tool. You can have a connection with them, and you can share their point of view, but ultimately, you are helping them reflect.

Even when I'm reading a script where I'm supposed to be looking at the lead role, I'll find myself gravitating toward some small weirdo in a few scenes instead. I'm very instinctive like that and I love the challenge of not having a lot of time to create someone who feels real.

With most good scripts and good shows, they expect the actor to bring some of their ideas to the backstory of the character. It's always a good collaboration between the actor and the writer and the director to try stuff out during the process.

A while ago, I did a television adaptation of 'Bleak House,' and the character I played, as far as I was concerned, had no redeeming features whatsoever. I wasn't about to try to find any; I didn't need to.

I think there's been a tendency to place me in what has been characterised as the 'moral centre' of the film. In films like 'The Ice Storm' and 'The Crucible' and 'Nixon,' that's the sort of the persona that emerged.

Movie acting, I later realized, reminds me of contract bridge. Each requires the same concentration, intense short-term memory, and obliviousness to everything else until the last trump is called - or whatever it is they do.

Every time I do a film, I have to make sure that when someone looks at me, they can't recognise Disha. It has to be a character. I want to do strong roles.

I feel I should never do passive characters. They don't work for me.

Even when I'm playing a lawyer or a doctor, I want to play a person. A human being.

At a certain point in my career, I was probably having a difficult time 'holding space.' So you get a character that has to be commanding in order for him to resonate and make sense.

I don't categorize characters into one syllable. These are fully-rounded characters that I don't judge; I just play them.

I've seen other actresses refuse to be ugly. Even if the story line calls for it or the character calls for it, they just can't go there for vanity's sake, and they don't want to be perceived in an ugly way. I was like, 'Nah, I wanna go for this.'

Once, Naseeruddin Shah told me that the wafer shop was the best acting school that I could have attended. And I completely agree. I observed every customer very minutely and picked up some quirk or the other. Later, I used those experiences while playing different characters.

The wonderful thing about acting is you move along with your decade. The older you get, the more interesting the parts you get to play and you bring more of your personal experience to the part.

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.

I get to delve into some of the most creative experience I've had as an actor on 'Mr. Robot.' I think there's a wide opportunity for actors to do that now more so than ever on television.

I do figure every angle of a guy I'm acting - but not consciously 'til afterward.

Playing Batman is an actor's challenge. First, it's different; then, you have to reach a multi-level audience. The kids take it straight, but for adults, we have to project it further.

I can be a teddy bear, but more people tend to see me as the other side of the coin, and that has to do with casting, more Iago than Hamlet. But I don't play villains; I play people doing the right thing for the circumstances and time.