Top 120 Quotes & Sayings by Liev Schreiber - Page 2

We have to remember to respect the faith of people and maybe not the organizations or the groups that manifest around it.

I'm someone who started in the theater and really couldn't stand repeating the show. My favorite part of acting is the five or six weeks of rehearsal that you get. I like doing previews; I like the opening week because my friends and family come, and then after that, I don't want to do it anymore.

I think conflicted characters are always more interesting.

You hear different things from different people, and they're all valid: they're all valuable. I think that's what comprises a performance is all those ideas.

I struggle with the idea of comparing people's work and art. The notion of giving awards or putting a competitive spin on something that is a relative art form is sort of odd to me.

The interesting thing about doing serial television is that the character is growing separate from you, the character and the show are growing, and you get to observe that and participate with it in a way that I think is actually really exciting for an actor.

I have the kind of face that people want to punch.

The guy who kind of broke the story in 'Spotlight' was a priest, the guy who had sort of done all the research. One of the things he said when one of the 'Spotlight' reporters asked him how he could still remain a Catholic, he said that, 'My faith is in the eternal, and the church is an organization.'

I'm terrible with big parties.

I love having that creative discussion where, at the end of the day, you both feel better for having done it. Maybe it's a typically Jewish thing, where you sort of go at each other.

The premise for me has always been that it's vulnerable people who do violent things. And the more vulnerable they feel, often, the more violent they are. But I think, you know, that's an idea that comes from history, from classical theater, for me.

No offense to the Canadians, but I believe location is like a character, and authenticity really matters. When you're in a place like New York or D.C., you just can't beat it, and it's so hard to recreate because they are both such distinctive places. I think it's pretty easy these days to tell films that are shot in Toronto.

My style was always intuitive. I never used to believe in working on your body. Anything that smacked of vanity to me was bad for your acting, but I learned that wasn't true.

I was always curious about motivation and intention, and really, that's a lot of what acting is. I was a little bit different.

That's really how I got started was doing Shakespeare. When I got out of school, I was lucky enough to meet George Wolfe, who ran The Public Theater.

I get panic attacks in big crowds.

It's finding time for each other. That's the trick to any relationship, you know. Finding time to really be present for each other.

I was always curious about motivation and intention, and really, that's a lot of what acting is.

I really never thought I was that good at film. And honestly still don't. My strength is language. My background is monologues and a certain kind of Brechtian spin on theater.

My grandfather was raising me, and in many respects, I was trying to understand what it meant to be a man. He was my role model.

I did some research into what was going on in terms of the sexual revolution that was happening in the '60s in the gay community and particularly in the drag world. Before the '60s, guys doing drag would dress like their mothers or iconic Hollywood actresses.

I'm kind of an obsessive-compulsive person, like, neat obsessive.

The worst bar fights I ever saw were in London. I saw a guy break a pint glass in another guy's face in a club in the Eighties. It was a gay club, too.

I find old women at weddings and funerals attractive; I have this weird mortality thing.

I've never been a heavy practitioner of the method or, at least, with any specific intent; I'm kind of an impulse-based person. Like, I'm sort of waiting for something to happen that I'm not expecting, and I kind of want to jump on that train of emotion, whatever it is, both from myself or from the other actor.

My mother didn't let me see color films. I saw a lot of black-and-white films. The first time I saw Basil Rathbone, I was completely taken. To me, that was the epitome of great acting, was Basil Rathbone - not only in Sherlock Holmes, but the Sheriff of Nottingham, and all the terrible characters he had to play alongside Errol Flynn.

Home is New York.

Theater is consistent. You ride your bike to work. You get most of the day off so you can see your kids. My problem is that after three months, I go mad. One of the reasons I never thought I could do a TV show is that I hate doing the same thing over and over again.

I find that the most interestingly written parts happen to be the bad guys.

During 'Manchurian Candidate' - that role originated with Laurence Harvey, and I studied everything he did. I would never be able to reproduce that performance, but I got a lot of ideas from watching it.

I remember finding 'Harold and Maude' strangely erotic. I've always had an octogenarian fetish.

I think, the first time I played Iago at the Public Theater, I realized I had a - much to my chagrin - I realized I had an instinct for these conflicted characters, for these torn characters, for these characters who could be described as evil. I wouldn't describe them that way.

Everyone says villains are thankless parts, but those are really the best roles.

I had great teachers, great ensembles, and great companies to work with who supported my career.

The celebrity mill is so active these days that actors can make careers out of being themselves, and I don't know that I want to. I think I'm just figuring out how to make a career out of not being myself. It's hard.

Acting is like an addiction - once you start, you can't stop.

Pitching. You're pitching yourself constantly which is probably why there are so many plays about sales. I think also it's like life.

There's the private persona and the public persona and the two shall never meet

Someone very smart once said to me, "Steal, don't borrow." So if there's anything good in anything anyone else does, it's fair game. I think that everything I've ever done at some point is part of someone else's legacy.

I've always been more interested in the audience than I have in the plays. I like that idea of all those people sitting in the dark together. It's kind of fun.

I want to forget what I've learned about the character, but the reality is that you can't, because you've absorbed it. It's there in that moment when you need it. The hard part is to trust it.

I really do think that if you're doing your job right, you're never gonna be what the other actor was, but you can be influenced by his intelligence and his choices.

There's something cathartic about swearing 150 times after spending ten hours in the editing room.

Some actors need to be rattled and some need to be focused

Call me communist, but I think that's something that everyone, regardless of their family's income, has a right to, and I was fortunate enough to have a mother who felt that way as well.

Ever since I was a little kid I was obsessed with films, and I always wanted to make them

I don't think I've ever been a huge target for the press, and I value that to a degree, because there's a certain value for actors staying beneath the radar so they can play characters.

I think people respond to truthful, simple narrative, and the more you try to dress it up to try and do something else, the harder it is for people to relate to.

The skill set for hockey is so specific to skating and if you haven’t been skating as a kid it’s impossible to play - and I wasn’t a skater.

I am struggling, though. It’s f-cking hard. So little sleep. It’s 23 hours and 59 minutes of exhaustion. They do one little thing in that last minute that is just so compelling and fascinating that it makes the other 23 hours and 59 minutes worthwhile.

Particularly with the plays I choose, they're good parts, and they're parts that have been around long before a bad actor played them, and will be around long after I play them. Part of what I enjoy about the theatre and acting is that sense of history.

You are what you know, as an actor, so you gotta try to know as much as you possibly can.

I direct in the same way that I act, which is thinking about what the scene needs.

Its the difference between instinct and intuition.

You know, I have a deep, deep affinity for Dr. Suess.

I think it’s really, really important to mix it up as an actor, to try to get as much kind of varied experience as you can, not only for your own personal growth as an actor but for the audience to keep them guessing about what you’re going to do.

And I think for me theres a lot of neurosis involved with where you should be or thinking about where you are all the time instead of being where you are.

Flaws reveal a lot about a character and who people are. The flawed elements of a character are where I find their humanity. Those are the things I tend to identify with - the weaknesses. I don't know why, but I identify with struggle more than with success.

Actors are as good as they allow themselves to be, and to portray life, you have to have as broad an experience of it as you possibly can, so everything's worth it.

He was very supportive of me, ... He saw every single play I did in New York. Ill never forget looking out into the audience and watching my brother, who was 40 years younger than my grandfather, sleeping in his chair during some of my early plays. My grandfather Alex never fell asleep.