Understated Performance Quotes

I play a lot of characters where I don't even speak in my own voice. I learned about focus and I learned to trust that things can work when they're not heightened and that it's interesting when things are pared down.

A lot of people tend to chew up the scenery. I'm a firm believer in less is more, especially on the big screen.

Minimal is the word I'd use to describe how I live and dress, and it's also how I sing. I'm not a big fan of overemoting.

I don't like showing the technique. I don't like people who say, "Here, I'm going to act, but first I have to bounce off this wall." If you have to bounce off the wall, do it by yourself. Don't feature the technique. My old drama coach used to say, "Don't just do something, stand there." Gary Cooper wasn't afraid to do nothing.

I've rarely played glamorous roles. I don't mind looking plain on camera.

I was certainly a better actor after my five years in Hollywood. I had learned to be natural - never to exaggerate. I found I could act on the stage in just the same way as I had acted in a studio: using my ordinary voice, eliminating gestures, keeping everything extremely simple.

I admire an actor that can do a lot with doing nothing really, for the most part. I like doing a lot by doing so little.

I learnt to keep my acting subtle.

I'd love to tell actors about all the things they don't need to worry about. Less is more. If you have it inside, you don't need to show too much. People pick up on things.

As an actor, you don't want to say, 'I'm going to be loud and big.' Because that looks awful; that looks fake.

I'm almost sometimes too subtle in my acting.

People seem to be interested in me. So I try to keep my acting pretty simple.

Too many actors try to get too much out of scenes that they ought to be leaving alone, just doing them quickly and getting the hell out.

As an actor, you think you have to go really far and deep and cry and yell to be good in a scene. Sometimes that's not the point.

In my stand up, I think I try to be less energetic because I feel embarrassed about how much enthusiasm I have. There's something about acting like I don't care, or if I act like I haven't spent enough time on it, it seems to go better. If I act like I'm really trying to sell it, it doesn't go as well.

There's something about Alan Arkin. Even when he's doing nothing, he makes me laugh. I've always had that reaction to him: he's got a weary world-view that makes him perfectly cast.

It's my job to try to communicate with as little showiness as possible. I was a really showy actor as a young man.

With young people, it's how brassy and flashy can you be. But you get a bit older, it's about how restrained can you be. You have to feel it all, think it all, but you don't have to play it - it's just gotta be there, and if the story's good and the script's good, people will see it.

I recently finished a job, an HBO movie 'Getting On,' a very dark comedy. It comes from a British series of the same name. In this role I have no hair, no make up and no nails. I play a very small role; she is not over the top and sassy.

Not my biggest fear, but my biggest problem onstage is over-emphasizing what I do. I'm pushing too hard. You need to engage an audience. They need to be able to involve their own imaginations as well. They don't need everything thrust down their throat, and I have a tendency to do that. I always have had a tendency to do that.