A Quote by Jeffrey Eugenides

I think there's a real connection between acting and writing novels because the way I write characters has a little bit to do with the method acting that I was taught in high school and college.
When I got to high school and college, I was more involved in athletics then I was in acting. At that time, I was trying to figure out what my identity was and roles became more gendered, it was a little bit more challenging for me to stay with the acting.
I started going to acting school in my senior year in high school, and I remained in acting school through four years of college.
I always enjoyed writing. I did playlets in high school, I did radio shows in college. That's one of the reasons I went down to Second City, because you could do acting and writing.
I think people have a misinterpretation of Method acting, because Method acting is a wonderful thing. The thing is, if you take it too seriously, it's like religion. You start to think it's the truth. But it's not the truth. It's just a way to get somewhere.
I used to be a bit obsessed by acting but not anymore. I do enjoy acting but I probably enjoy it more now because it's easier. I can't work in the theater because to me it's too serious. It's like being in prison for me. I admire people that can do that but I can't do it. I'd rather live my life and do a bit of acting in between.
I certainly think that there's a little bit of me in all of my characters, because I feel like the only way you can write is if you put a little bit of yourself in there.
Most American actors are taught the Stanislavsky method... Method acting, but I really think that as an actor you have to develop what works for you. There is really not one way of doing anything. There are many ways of achieving the same goal.
Ewan was auditioning to get into acting college and asked me for advice as he wasn't connecting with the piece he was learning. I told him to think about a time he'd been beaten up in Glasgow and how he felt when the guy had punched him for no reason. He then made the connection between emotion and the words he was saying, which is what acting is.
I did some acting in high school and then a little more in college, and it just was the thing that I felt that I wanted to do more than anything else. And then I was fortunate enough to audition for and get into Yale Drama School right after college, and I spent three years there.
I was, throughout school, in the theater program. Through elementary school, junior high, high school, and then J.J. Abrams, my closest friend in the world, we were living together. He was writing, and I was trying writing; I wasnt getting paid for it like he was, but I always had the acting bug.
I think the greatest gift actually acting is that I have a true fascination and love for people, and the way they are, and all the choices they made in life and all the different paths they took. I feel like acting gives me an opportunity to dig a little bit into that. That's great because it's eye-opening and it makes you an open person.
Method acting is a label I don't really understand, because there's a method to everybody's acting.
Between acting jobs, I'd go visit my hometown and college town to see family and friends. But I would also teach acting, dance, singing, and audition techniques in high schools and colleges. I take great pride in all the survival jobs I worked, because I learned so much from them.
I've been thinking a lot about why it was so important to me to do The Idiot as a novel, and not a memoir. One reason is the great love of novels that I keep droning on about. I've always loved reading novels. I've wanted to write novels since I was little. I started my first novel when I was seven.I don't have the same connection to memoir or nonfiction or essays. Writing nonfiction makes me feel a little bit as if I'm producing a product I don't consume - it's a really alienating feeling.
I didn't always want to act. My passion was writing, and it still is one of my primary passions to this day, but it wasn't until high school when I started acting in plays that it became a thought of something I might want to do. And when I applied to colleges, at NYU, I was able to study both writing and acting.
I went to school for singing, middle school at LaGuardia High School. Followed by Berkeley College of Music and afterwards I went to acting school at the Neighborhood Playhouse for Theater.
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