Script Interpretation Quotes

We actors can't say every line as if it has weight, but what we want to do is be true to the meaning of each line, whatever it is. Even the lines that are throwaway may come back later.

Sometimes when I'm reading a script, I can't quite believe that this is going on television alongside cereal commercials.

There is such a thing as my kind of actor, and how well they pull off my dialogue is a very, very important part of it.

I never work from the script. I get the script more or less.

I think when you're acting, you usually don't have to know too much beyond how to pronounce the words you're saying.

I had one well known director who kept saying, "Now Clint, this is what ...." And I'd say, "I know. I read the script. I'm the one who cast you as the director. Let me show you and you'll correct me if I'm wrong."

To perform on stage, you have to run through your paces till you are perfect. Despite the script and director, the actor makes or breaks the play.

When I do a film, I follow the director.

I was doing the work I was capable of doing with my own native talent, but when I looked at actors like Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean, Kim Stanley, and Geraldine Page, I knew that they knew something that I didn't know. I wanted to find out what that was.

I don't think it's necessary to be an actor to get great performances out of an actor. But I do think it helps me as a director because I know what I like as an actor, and I try to get that to the actors who I'm working with.

The reason I took on directing a film myself was because, no matter how skilful a director was or how much I liked the film, there'd always be beats where I'd go, 'Oh... well, that's skilful, in a way, but it doesn't get the flavour I'd intended in the script.'

You can have good writing, but a great actor will make it feel and sound like great writing. You can have great writing, and mediocre actors will make it feel mediocre. Without the actors, you have nothing.

An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer.

I've always found the script to be more of a skeleton, the template.

Actors can be many things - vain, venal, self-serving, obnoxious, bullies - but all of the good ones are great storytellers.

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.

Usually, I end up looking for something completely different to who I last played. But there is just a spark that's lit when I read a script or character I want to play.

Preparing for roles sounds so academic, doesn't it? It feels as if you are preparing for an examination! In a creative medium, the preparation is of an entirely different kind, and for me, the ideas flow from the script itself.

I remember, working on 'Lost,' I learned very quickly the way that I had to approach the material or even ask the director questions. It was always prefaced with, 'Would it be wrong for me to assume?' Because I didn't know where my character on 'Lost' was going.

What I mostly do is take the script, analyse the hell out of it, see what's in there, see what kind of person I'm dealing with, and then forget I'm playing a father and just play a person who exemplifies all those things.

It's usually very, very hard for me to pick up a script that was written and try and see myself as a part of that, especially when you're used to performing all your own material. It's OK with drama, I like being handed great material but I think with comedy it's far more personal and probably a lot harder for me to find a fit.

I'm only an actor. I'm not a writer. I'm not going to leave any legacy. All I've ever done is learn the lines and say them.

I think it makes such a huge difference when the director has acting experience as well because it just means that he not only has a view of the film as a whole and the intentions of the scene in terms of the audience, he also has an actor's instinct of how to communicate something to us.

There is something special about being an actor and able to bring somebody's visualisation - director, storywriter and script writer - into life. It is almost like creating a person.

I'm not one of those actors who likes to analyze things too much, so I trust what the writers are doing with the characters, in order to give them their journey. My job is to come in and try to make those words on the page come alive on camera.