A Quote by Philip Seymour Hoffman

If I'm directing actors, I learn about acting that way. If I'm acting, I learn about directing that way. Producing is just something that's come about because there's projects I find interesting that I would like to help get done.
For me, the real goal is to integrate. The thing that I'm most happy with is the fact that I've been able to keep doing all of it - to keep writing, and to keep acting in movies, and to keep acting on the stage, to keep directing plays. I find that they feed each other, and that I learn about acting from directing and I learn about writing from acting.
I think I'm good with actors. I like directing actors. I also like to show up and just do an acting gig. Where I'm just a hired gun, I don't have to have an opinion on anything.I never got involved in all this stuff because I wanted to control stuff; I got involved in writing and producing because I wasn't getting interesting acting gigs. In a way I'm grateful that I didn't get interesting roles, because it made me pull my finger out and do some work.
I learn a new thing every single day about acting, about directing, about producing.
Anytime I get an acting role, I find a way to learn about something new, or heal a part of my life that I didn't know was hurting. I think anybody could benefit from taking acting classes. You don't necessarily have to want to be an actor or pursue the acting business. But just taking an acting class, you're going to learn so much about life and what it's like to walk in somebody else's shoes. It helps you stop judging people. It does something to you where you become empathetic to people's plights and journeys, and it makes you a little more understanding and caring.
Acting is always at the core of my life, but I'm also excited about producing. I'm excited about directing, and I have a life in the filmmaking world, and so I want to explore all aspects of it, not just the acting, but acting is the root.
I love talking about acting. I'm just such a fan of actors and filmmakers, and I try to choose roles where I get to talk to great actors about acting and learn.
I really have very little aspirations about acting because I think that probably the best things have come and gone. I would like to focus on writing and directing. I love writing and directing even though writing can be incredibly painful and lonely. I get great satisfaction from doing it.
I would love to try my hand at directing and even producing in some kind of way. Something about that intrigues me, but for directing I could completely see myself trying.
Searching out directors you respect and that you can learn from that's always the dream. That's the goal. That's hopefully where this whole thing is leading, and what better way to learn about directing and learn about what works and what I like and what resonates me than by working with a bunch of great directors.
I learnt how acting is more about listening to the other person; it is about reaction. You learn to be a foil, and that helped when it came to directing.
You always learn something about movies. Directing or acting, there's always something new. It's the technological thing; there's always something to learn.
I loved theater and went to Circle in the Square's post-graduate program for two years and studied acting and directing and I loved it. I loved acting and directing - I really like directing a lot. Some days I think maybe someday I'll go back and direct something.
What I learned about acting, from my experiences directing, is why so many producers and directors don't like actors. You go through all of this work securing a location, figuring out how to get electricity there, how to get trucks parked where they need to be, and where catering is going to come from. And if the actors don't come up with some magic, it actually didn't matter. That creates a lot of animosity towards the actors.
Well, they just don't know anything else except that one form of their business, acting, and they don't really want to learn any other part of it, or they would. Directing and producing and putting a show together is very creative, for me.
Actions are interesting to watch. I learn about the actors. Their movements are emblems of the tensions in this internal landscape, which their actions resolve. About-to-act is an interesting state to experience, because I am conscious of just those tensions. Acting itself feels fairly dull; it not only resolves, it obliterates those tensions from my consciousness. Acting is only interesting as it leads to new tensions that, irrelevantly, cause me to act again.
All the theories that acting is reacting to imaginary circumstances as though they are real, and directing is turning psychology into behavior, those are all stabs at something that can't be taught. All the great actors can't talk about what they do, and they don't want to begin to talk about it. They just do it.
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