A Quote by Jane Levy

Costume is a huge part of getting into character. Your body soaks in what you're wearing, and you turn into someone else. — © Jane Levy
Costume is a huge part of getting into character. Your body soaks in what you're wearing, and you turn into someone else.
Costume is always an asset. Normal costume you have a lot to say about - if you're wearing suits or ties, and what color you want, and how it's going to be cut, and stuff like that, and whether or not you're going to wear a hat, and blah, blah, blah. But, when you're wearing a special costume, and of course, costume is probably the second ingredient in character, script being first, I always find that the costume does a lot to cement your character, to put it firmly in mind.
I've done a few costume dramas, and people say, 'What was it like wearing the costumes? Did they really help you with your character?,' and most of the time it doesn't make any difference. You're wearing something a bit weird, and it's sort of uncomfortable, but it doesn't really have a huge impact on the part that you're playing.
For me the costume is always a huge part of getting into character.
It's a bit of an outside-in approach - so often the clothing can reveal so much about a character. It's like part of her superhero costume that she gets to put on and become someone else.
I design for the movie and the character as well as the person wearing the costume. I show the ideas to the actor, then do fittings for shape and technical things such as movement in the costume. Once the costume in this form is on the actor, you have a sense of their connection with it. I then take it to the next level with the final fit.
It's wrong to believe that you need a certain physical body type to run. All body types can run. It's not about your legs, muscles, or cellulite. It's not about the physical side of things. If you train your brain, your body will follow. It's that simple. The hard part isn't getting your body in shape. The hard part is getting your mind in shape.
I like a character, not a costume - the idea of putting on clothes and you become someone else.
That's because you've never been one. You haven't spent years wearing someone else's clothes, taking someone else's name, living in someone else's houses, and working someone else's job to fit in. And if you don't sell out, then you run away... proving you're the Gypsy they said you were all along.
Improv is such a huge part of my background, and a huge part of character discovery is really being inside the character and trying to think through them without the limitations of the script.
If James Franco's wearing a costume, and I'm wearing a motion capture suit, we don't act any differently with each other because of what we're wearing. We're embodying our roles.
If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story.
The old-timers taught me about psychology. Whatever body part, for instance, you decided to work on, well, you worked on. If you're working on someone's arm, you don't go to the head with headlocks. You don't go to the lower body. If you start with a body part, you stay with a body part.
You have to want it, you have to plan for it, you have to fit it into a busy day, you have to be mentally tough, you have to use others to help you. The hard part isn't getting your body in shape. The hard part is getting your mind in shape.
Acting always affects every part of your life because it's such a solitary, lonely, and thrilling circumstance that you're taking on someone else's character and that responsibility. It's exhausting.
You have to stand up and be a human. You have to honor the man or woman that you are. Respect your body, enjoy your body, love your body, feed, clean, and heal your body. Exercise and do what makes your body feel good. This is a puja to your body, and that is a communion between you and God. . . . When you practice giving love to every part of your body, you plant seeds of love in your mind, and when they grow, you will love, honor, and respect your body immensely.
Somewhere in the back of my brain there exists this certainty: The body is no more than a costume, and can be changed at will. That the changing of bodies, like costumes, would make me into a different character, a character who might, finally, be alright.
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