If I speak with a character’s voice it is because that character’s become so much part of me that … I think I have the right then to imagine myself into the skin, into the life, into the dreams, into the experience of the particular character that I’ve chosen.
The screen is a window through which one sees a virtual world. The challenge is to make that world look real, act real, sound real, feel real.
My approach is always the same. I try to be as honest as possible. Find the real honesty and humanity in the character because even a fictional character is supposed to feel real. And my job is to find that reality and bring it to the screen.
It's no wonder we don't defend the land where we live. We don't live here. We live in television programs and movies and books and with celebrities and in heaven and by rules and laws and abstractions created by people far away and we live anywhere and everywhere except in our particular bodies on this particular land at this particular moment in these particular circumstances.
I go through a whole process with the actors first, building and creating characters, then I encourage them to sort of live in that character when they're in the screen.
The harder part of doing a real story is that there are real people and you have a responsibility to not just go crazy with their lives and have them do things which are not their character, that they then have to live with.
The Real is ever-present, like the screen on which the cinematographic pictures move. While the picture appears on it, the screen remains invisible. Stop the picture, and the screen will become clear. All thoughts and events are merely pictures moving on the screen of Pure Consciousness, which alone is real.
The reason I became an actress is because I wanted my acting to reflect life as it is. I want to put truth on the screen. I want real women to see real women on the screen.
I act according to the requirements of the character, and if I try to play the role, then I play it truthfully. In my daily life, I'm a laid-back, peaceful guy. I'm just doing my job to act.
When you're on screen with Mads, there's some real fireworks because your character is his intellectual equal. In a way, maybe your character has an instinct as to who this man really is.
I read the script and decide if a particular character looks fun to play. I look for complexity and a sense of humor. Those are crucial, real things to life.
Virtues are dispositions not only to act in particular ways, but also to feel in particular ways. To act virtuously is not, as Kant was later to think, to act against inclination; it is to act from inclination formed by the cultivation of the virtues.
The character we exhibit in the latter half of our life need not necessarily be, though it often is, our original character, developed further, dried up, exaggerated, or diminished. It can be its exact opposite, like a suit worn inside out.
If you are well-mannered towards those whose views are similar to yours, you may be said to exhibit a fairly good character. But, if you behave properly wit those holding divergent views from you or who criticize you, then you deserve to be credited with having an excellent character. (p. 99)
With the type of actor I am, which includes really diving into a role and making it as real as possible, there's nothing better than working in a real environment on location. It forces you to feel what the character's feeling, and it allows you to live in the space of the character.
When we acknowledge that all of life is sacred and that each act is an act of choice and therefore sacred, then life is a sacred dance lived consciously each moment. When we live at this level, we participate in the creation of a better world.