A Quote by Barry Nelson

The fun for me is knowing what the other person is saying and what my character would be thinking at that time. On the stage you get the chance to do all that, to analyze and build a part, to react, to contribute something no one else can-not the author, not even the director.

Barry Nelson

Quote Topics

Analyze Author Build Chance Character Contribute Director Else Even Fun Get Knowing Me Other Part Person React Saying Something Stage Thinking Time Would Would Be

Quote Author

Barry Nelson
American - Actor
April 16, 1917 - April 7, 2007

I've always been a character actor, although I'm not quite sure what that means. All my scripts are absolutely covered in notes, so any time I say anything - even 'pass the salt' - I have six subtexts, comments on what I really mean when I'm saying that. Maybe that's what gives the impression that I'm saying one thing and thinking something else.

Christopher Walken

Even when you think you can detach yourself from the characters, you don't. Because you're spending so much time trying to realize this person and make them real that they do infect you, in a way. And you do take them home and live with them, even if you think you're turning the character off. But in order to pull off a role convincingly, you wind up thinking about that person all the time, and it does sort of creep into you. And then there are things that you'll respond to, or react to in a very different way than you would normally.

Jennifer Jason Leigh

The platform doesn't really matter to me, whether it's stage or theatre or even a web series. I just am more interested in, like, if it's a story that I would want to watch and if it's a character that I feel like I can contribute something to, then that's really what gets me.

Julia Stiles

Imagine that someone said or did something cruel to you, but that you did not react in any way whatsoever – you did not become upset, resentful or even ruffled. You simply observed that this person was saying or doing something cruel, as though you were calmly observing the scene in a movie. You simply would not be stressed by what would appear to others to be a highly stressful encounter. Stress and cruelty affect us as profoundly as they do only because we react to them resentfully.

Roy Masters

You're in a movie, so you have to think about how something plays. It's not like you're thinking about how an audience is going to react. You're trying to present the story. You're trying to illuminate the lives of these people in the story. So I'm thinking about how my behavior as this character best illuminates what's going on with them in this moment in time. I always say it's sort of the director's job. People think that the directors direct actors. No. Really, what the director's doing is directing the audience's eye through the film.

Julianne Moore

Part of me, even when I was trying to get acting jobs, I was still kind of thinking, 'Oh I should do something else with my life.'

Hong Chau

In some instances, I would say the writer does deserve equal billing with the director. In other instances the director - especially if he wrote part of the script himself - is clearly more the author of the movie.

Mark Romanek

Well, you put a little piece of yourself into every character that you do. Even if you're playing some psychotic person, which of course I'm not, some part of you is in that character and it's hopefully believable. I always come back to the fact that my own instinct is better than something I build in my mind.

Scarlett Johansson

In the course of interviewing, I've discovered that if you don't give your guest something to react to, they don't react. They simply say what they've been saying every time they've been interviewed. The last thing you want is to have people say to you what they've said to someone else.

Michael Silverblatt

If I had to choose criteria, for me, it's about first the director. I want to be a part of something that's good and intellectually challenging. After the director it's the character and the story. That's the deal for me.

Giovanni Ribisi

We build character in order for us to withstand the rigors of combat and resist the temptations to compromise our principles in peacetime. We must build character in peacetime because there is no time in war. Character is the most important quality you can find in any person, but especially in a soldier. It is the foundation that will get anybody through anything he may encounter. Reputation is what people think you are; character is what you are- that is the staying power.

Glen E. Morrell

What I loved about playing the corpse is that obviously somebody else got to do the physical part. It appeals to the part of me that likes playing character parts and getting the chance to get away from my own physicality.

Helena Bonham Carter

You get one chance to do something about native title. You get perhaps one chance in your life to do something about a republic. You get one chance, your chance, to build a piece of the political architecture in the Pacific. I wasn't going to give those up.

Paul Keating

I used to have costumed characters come out, like SpongeBob. It's just fun to make it into this minor event, just to surprise people and experiment and be weird and just have fun with it. I've done just the hour stand-up, and that's fun, but the other stuff makes it fun for me and gives me something to react to and bounce off of.

Hannibal Buress

But the fact I'm even getting to play a character that the producer, director and writers want me to play is a rarity in the industry. You'd think it happens all the time. It doesn't. There are so many hoops to jump through to get cast in something.