Subtle Performance Quotes

Sometimes you're watching a great film actor, and if you stand 10 feet away from them, you're like, 'God, they're terrible. They're not doing anything.' And then you see the close-up, and it's so nuanced, and so much expression is happening. They were acting for that camera and for no one else.

I want to play a character with grey shades.

It's well done if you can do a part and not have the acting show.

It's very hard to dramatise something factual and not make it look overdone, but also not to make it look so under-dramatised that it's dull.

I prefer to underplay scenes rather than, you know, be big and drive them. And sometimes you have to do that, but I like the more natural styles.

I like playing these characters who are just on the edge of ridiculous but always grounded in reality. I would never want to come across as a cartoon.

Michael C. Hall is an incredibly detailed actor who can convey so much with just an eyebrow.

I like playing guys where it's as important what they're thinking as what they're saying. Those are the people I like playing, and the actor that I strive to be. I like actors who work in that area and I like parts that allow me to work in that area.

I had been very impressed with the voiceover of 'Apocalypse Now,' with Martin Sheen's voice. That was a great voiceover; it really internalized the Martin Sheen character, who was essentially fairly low key and didn't say a lot during the whole movie. But he thought a lot, so I always thought that was really great.

It's easier to play aggression and malevolence onscreen, often, than to hit softer notes.

I looked at early movies with Robert Redford, and I like how Robert, even though he had that automatic charisma and was a very verbal person, he always played those more silent characters and played within the scene and never overacted.

Still, it can be more effective to accomplish what you need to accomplish with the minimum effort. Watch Anthony Hopkins. He doesn't appear to be doing anything. He is so still that you can't see him working, but you are drawn into his character through his very stillness.

It's harder to play a quiet character because everything happens in their stream of consciousness. They're thinking and feeling the world, but they're saying very little, so then you have to communicate it through your behavior.

In terms of scripted shows, I love 'Mad Men.' Cinematically, it's one of the most beautiful shows ever made. I love the subtlety of the acting and the storytelling, and I love that they don't think the audience is dumb. They make a great show, and you figure it out, and it leaves you with so many questions - it's just great.

I prefer the smaller acting than big histrionics. It's about reacting and looks, which is often underestimated.

In most of his films, Upendra has a harsh and rough demeanor, and Sudeep also has a very massy commercial image. In 'Mukunda Murari,' though, their characters require them to be very different and near silent.

Sometimes the better an actor is, the less he's noticed.

I found that with Rooney, her instincts in films was always to underplay and to sort of reduce down what was necessary to bring you in - a sense of economy, a sense of scale, which just seemed to understand the medium so well. When you see that in a younger actor, I always think it speaks to incredible knowledge. I can't exactly figure out where that comes from, that confidence to know how to be quiet.

My primary instinct as an actor is not the big transformation. It's thrilling if a performer can do that well, but that's not me. Often with actors, it's a case of witnessing a big party piece but wondering afterwards, where's the substance?

One of the traditions of film acting is a sort of mumbled realism. Be minimal, and do less. 'Even less than that.'

Some audiences can shake and bang their heads on the stage to riffs all night long, but subtlety is an art that must be mastered if you're going to be remembered.

Quiet people, people who aren't given to emotional outbursts, people who are economic with words - they're also fun to play, but you find yourself needing a laser precision in those roles. Otherwise you just sort of stand around, looking slightly brain-dead. You worry about being uninteresting.

The greatest acting really is spoken without words, or at least I like to think that.

I learnt to keep my acting subtle.

I would almost say that the best screen actor is the man who can do nothing extremely well.