A Quote by Meryl Streep

The best thing about acting is when you're playing a scene and you actually become your character and lose yourself in that moment. That's when you know you've been succeeded at what you've worked very hard to accomplish in your profession. Those are the truly thrilling moments.
There is no better moment than this moment, when we're anticipating the actual moment itself. All of the moments that lead up to the actual moment are truly the best moments. Those are the moments that are filled with good times. Those are the moments in which you are able to think that it is going to be perfect, when the moment actually happens. But, the moment is reality, and reality always kinda sucks!
What we are talking about is learning to live in the present moment, in the now. When you aren't distracted by your own negative thinking, when you don't allow yourself to get lost in moments that are gone or yet to come, you are left with this moment. This moment-now-truly is the only moment you have. It is beautiful and special. Life is simply a series of such moments to be experienced one right after another. If you attend to the moment you are in and stay connected to your soul and remain happy, you will find that your heart is filled with positive feelings.
Your purpose is about discovering and nurturing who you truly are, to know and love yourself at the deepest level and to guide yourself back home when you lose your way. That's it. Everything else is your burning passion, your inspired mission, your job, your love-fueled hobby, etc. Those things are powerful and essential, but they're not your purpose. Your purpose is much bigger than that.
Very rarely have I worked with a director where we've been at odds. And by the time you've actually talked to somebody and you have the job, there's something that they see in you that they want you to bring to the character. And the best director says very little to you, acting-wise. They usually just say, "Okay, here's the shot." It's their job to do all that stuff, and your job's to do the acting. So it's very rare that somebody will say, "Oh, no. I conceived this very differently".
I think pain is a very - it's an extremely hard thing to empathize moment to moment. And you often don't remember your own pain, you know, that moment that you broke a limb or you burned yourself or, I think, this is a common thing that women talk about with childbirth, that the memory of the pain is hard to summon up and relive, thankfully.
You definitely care about your character because you wear it and you're associated to it by all means and I love the change and spontaneity. At the same time, you know, acting is a profession and you realize that this character is not necessarily your property.
You are preparing yourself for a scene, and the most important thing is to remain emotionally available and remain in the moment with your scene partner. You don't want to let your own self-consciousness block the flow of creativity that's coming out so that you can act and react, and play what the scene is all about.
The important thing to know about playing to win and playing not to lose is that there are actually different neural networks that are being used. It's not very easy to do both at the same time and, if you are trying to have a playing to win mentality, you're going for it, there's some things that trip you up or trigger the wrong neural network. If you start worrying about your mistakes all of a sudden, if you get too focused on the facts and the details, these are going to shift your neural networks and sort of screw up your strategy.
Every actor has his own approach towards acting. I believe you do not become the character you are playing. You may get closer to it but you do not lose yourself. There's just a reflection of the character in you.
What would you love to achieve and accomplish? What would you feel great about doing in your life? What meaningful goals would you wish to reach? Imagine achieving and accomplishing everything that you would wish [dream] for. Picture yourself reaching your highest aspirations and your most meaningful goals. Visualize yourself speaking and acting the way you would wish with the highest and best character traits.
The most difficult thing for spiritual seekers to do is to stop struggling, striving, seeking, and searching. Why? Because in the absence of struggle you don't know who you are; you lose your boundaries, you lose your separateness, you lose your specialness, you lose the dream you have lived all your life. Eventually you lose everything that your mind has created and awaken to who you truly are: the fullness of freedom, unbound by any identifications, identities, or boundaries.
Acting is a way to escape who you are for a short period of time. It doesn't happen all the time , but every now and then, the sensation of being 'other' is very profound. You get this moment where you are no longer yourself. You lose consciousness of the crew or the audience... it's a thrilling moment. And even quite spiritual.
Acting is a marvelous profession ... If you can spend enough time playing other people, you don't have to think too much about your own character and motivations.
Gary Ross one of those directors which lets you do what you need to do to become your character - he lets you try to do everything on your own when you're acting. Then at some points he would say, "Let's try this," or "Let's try that." Most of the time he just kind of let me try to just become my character on my own and it worked out really well.
You know those moments when everything is exactly the way it was meant to be? When you find yourself and your entire universe aligning in perfect synchronization, and you know you couldn’t possibly be more content? I was inside that very moment, and fully conscious of it.
Never lose yourself on the stage. Always act in your own person, as an artist. The moment you lose yourself on the stage marks the departure from truly living your part and the beginning of exaggerated false acting. Therefore, no matter how much you act, how many parts you take, you should never allow yourself any exception to the rule of using your own feelings. To break that rule is the equivalent of killing the person you are portraying, because you deprive him of a palpitating, living, human soul, which is the real source of life for a part.
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