A Quote by William H. Macy

Many times, I like to read the script before I even know who they want me to play, so I can read it and really enjoy it as an audience member. I think that's given me the ability to ferret out the really special scripts from all the rest.
Sometimes, I can read a great script, and I don't like the part, or I don't think I'm right for it. I mean, there are times I've read really great parts and think there's so many other actors who could do this better than me. And I just say no to it.
All modesty aside, I think I'm good at reading scripts. The way I read a script is as fast as I can, all in one sitting, and I don't read many of the stage directions. I only read enough stage directions to let me know where I am, because they're always so verbose and mostly horseshit. So I only read the dialogue, which allows me to see the movie in my mind's eye in real time.
For me, I wish I loved every script that I read. Sometimes I'm more picky and choosy than I really should be because you would get more jobs as an actor! But you don't know what it is. Sometimes you read something and it could be a big part or a small part. It could be one scene and I'll read it and say: "Wow, I really like that and I really want to do that.".
I'm not really a director for hire. You read these scripts and go, 'This is a really great script, but Paul Greengrass would make this so much better than me.' I usually say, 'I know who would be good for this. It's not me.
I'm not really a director for hire. You read these scripts and go, 'This is a really great script, but Paul Greengrass would make this so much better than me.' I usually say, 'I know who would be good for this. It's not me.'
I feel guilty if I'm not reading books, but I read scripts of movies or things that I know I'm committed to that I'm going to do the project. I tell myself, "I'm going to read this script like six times," and I only read it the initial time.
I barely read. I'm not a good reader at all. Rather than reading, I used to sit in front of the TV and watch black-and-white cowboy movies. I'm a painfully slow reader. It's really bad as an actor, because you have to read a lot of scripts. It takes me like an average of three hours to read a script, which is pretty poor.
You read so many scripts, especially pilots, that really feel like marbles in your mouth when you go to read them out loud.
Many times - especially when I'm playing an historical character - I want to be really on target with how I create that character and really nuanced with who that human being might be. But I don't want to lose the likeness of me or the depth of my own personality. So meditation and my spirituality has helped me to realize that, yes, I want to get out of the way but I also want the ability to hold on to what the audience likes of what they see of me.
I'm not really looking for anything. I don't really have a dream role that I'd like to play. When I read a script - I guess it's quite interesting, especially with theater - I get a sense about it. It's in my body: I sweat when I read a play.
I didn't really like reading much before I did 'The Golden Compass'. But then my teacher told me to read it. And I thought, 'Oh God, I'm going to have to read a whole book by myself!' It's not that I couldn't read, it's just that I didn't really like books very much. But the book that she lent me I really enjoyed.
It takes a very long time to read a script. I'll look at a script, but there are so many scripts. I remember once being at the dentist, and the guy was doing my teeth and telling me about the screenplay he'd written and he said, "Will you read it?" And I said "Oh...okay." And it turns out that it was about a dentist!
No one is really a method actor, everyone has their way of going about it, preparing for it, but method is preparation, it's what you do to prepare. So my method is to read the script. Some actors' method is to read the script a hundred times and in the doing of it, to immerse themselves in as much of the reality as possible. Me, I believe strictly in acting. If I am out of breath, I'm out of breath. I ain't running nowhere.
I think it took me seven years before I got the script for 'Frozen River.' That's the movie I had been looking for my whole career. When I read that, I knew I had to shoot that movie - that it'd be a game-changer. It was one of those scripts where I read it, and I was like, 'This movie could get into Sundance.'
I don't get that many scripts. Back in Australia, I've pretty much done my own shows and really no work outside of that. It's only now that I'm starting to read some Hollywood film scripts, and I've read some really great ones.
I worked in script development, many years ago, and read a lot of scripts. Between that and the scripts I've read as an actor, and I'm a writer as well, I think I have a pretty good sense about whether the bones of a story are there and whether the structure is intact.
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