A Quote by Alan Alda
A really great actor, in a lucky performance, can transform himself or herself. I've seen actors do that. But often it's a mechanical transformation, which isn't as interesting, and you've got to be careful how you go about something like that, I think.
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I just think it's really funny and entertaining. I mean, I don't necessarily take them really seriously - I don't even think a lot of really good films get seen. But I don't think that's what it's about. I mean, how amazing was Ellen Burstyn in Requiem For A Dream ? Especially as she was acting with herself most of the time. I don't understand how a performance like that can't win. I was so affected by that movie that I had to turn it off. I felt as if I was on drugs and my heart was about to leap out of my body.
The interesting thing about a song like 'Bulletproof Heart' - it was [originally] called 'Trans Am' - the interesting thing about the amalgamation of that song was that the song also lived within us, like we all got to live with the song and it was around for about a year before we recorded it again, so the song got to really transform, which you don't really get to do.
Even great actors who transform who they are still go to a really honest place; I think that's sort of that special skill that actors have.
I certainly don't feel there's a distinction to be made between a television and a film actor. I think there's a distinction between great actors and not so great actors. But I really think if you watch a person working in television give a wonderful performance, that person is f - ing great, because there is no time.
I've worked with actors before where I was like, this is not working, and then I've seen their work on the screen and I've been like, Wow, that was a really great performance. Because there are a lot of elements with film. It's not like stage. It's not a kind of performance art anymore; it's a highly tuned kind of collaboration - a symphony.
I want to go to the extremes and transformation is something I'm fascinated by. At the same time, you can transform but you can only really put what you've got inside you into somebody, so there's always going to be a degree of you inhabiting any role.
Though all actors do not make good directors, Dhanush is really one of the finest. He knows exactly how to direct an actor to extract the performance the way he wants it. Perhaps that is happening because he is a performer himself.
We can create the sensation of community through the accrual of actions, and that's often the clichéd way that storytelling is talked about, as someone taking a solo, and that's great for lots of reasons. But I don't really like to feel like I'm forced to listen to it in a certain way, or that there is one master reading of performance. I think what we want from performance is multiplicity, which is lots of ways in and through it, because it's for lots of people, and it was created by lots of people, often.
Garry Shandling was an actor's actor. He really cares about the performance. It was really interesting to watch him talk about motives and motivation and stuff. He really knows the craft.
An actor is looking for conflict. Conflict is what creates drama. We are taught to avoid trouble [so] actors don't realize they must go looking for it. Plays are written about...the extraordinary, the unusual, the climaxes. The more conflict actors find, the more interesting the performance.
I thought his performance was absolutely wonderful and had said so, but he seemed, as actors quite often are when they first see something, to be disappointed. I think he expected more from the film and himself.
Television is a completely different industry now. It's just extraordinary. It's so wonderful, because there's more interesting product. It attracts the best writers and directors. And one thing that's really interesting about it is that it used to be, if you were on a big network show, like it or not, you were a household face and name. And believe it or not, not all actors like that. That's not their goal. They just like being actors. And there are so many actors that are on hit shows that I have never seen, I've never heard.
I think one of the things I enjoy about acting is the transformation, and part of that is certainly the physical transformation. If people are confused forever, wondering where they have seen me before, that feels like exactly where I want to live. It feels like something's working.
Great actors can transform, but sometimes there's just this person who speaks right to the role. When they walk in the room, you know they're that character. That is something you can't teach an actor; that's something that's luck and chance.
I love actors; I love seeing great performances. I just love that, when I'm seeing a performance, that inside me, I just go, 'Oh my God, how are you doing that? Where is that coming from?' Where you see an actor do something, and I can't even locate it in my own body.
I'm one of the actors who really enjoys working with kids and animals, which is always a no go. There's something beautiful about it because you tend to forget yourself as an actor.
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