A Quote by Ray Stevenson

I consider it an actor going to work with other actors. It's not a competitive sport, it's not to outact anybody else, sorta thing, you can be a bad actor but you don't outact anybody, you just bring your character as best as you can.
I think as an actor... I don't like to compare a character to anybody else, just because I respect other people's work, and I want that character to have his own identity.
There should always be that leeway because if you think of your character as sort of absolutely fixed, then you just try and find actors to come and do exactly that thing, then you're not gonna be working with that actor's own set of internal impulses and who they are, so the best work is always a coming together of the actor and the character.
My story about becoming an actor is a completely non-romantic one. I became an actor because my parents were actors, and it seemed like a very... I knew I was going to act all my life, but I didn't know that I was going to be a professional actor. I thought I was just going to work as an actor every now and then.
Woody Allen is a better actor than anybody from the Actors Studio, and he can be anybody he says he is.
I was working in Chicago, in theater and in commercials and anything that anybody would let me do. When I moved to L.A., I had made a choice to be a character actor, meaning that I wanted to become somebody else. That's what attracted me to becoming an actor in the first place.
Certainly as an actor, half of your work is not going to end up on the screen anyway, because in the editorial process, they need to cut to the other actor in the scene. Very often, your best work ends up on the cutting room floor, because it just doesn't work with the overall narrative drive of the story.
For an actor to be working at all is a kind of miracle, because most actors aren't. So it's just silly for a working actor to say, 'Oh, I don't care if anybody knows I'm gay' especially if you're a leading man. Personally, I wouldn't advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out.
In reality, anybody who's a woman knows that you've got your good days and bad days, just like anybody else. I've been lucky with a lot of shows that I've worked on, where they are comfortable with the idea that women are not just one thing, and we can be contradiction.
Your tenacity is a larger deciding factor in your success than however good or bad an actor you may be. I feel like that's just something that cannot be overstated enough for people getting into the business. You have to really want it more than anybody else.
I don't think anybody becomes an actor to serve theatre or to serve art anywhere. We all become actors because we are insecure people who want to be looked at. That was the reason I became an actor.
Anybody who tells you that being married and having kids is a walk in the park - it's a beautiful thing. It's the best thing I've ever done in my life - but it's definitely work. You have to work at it like you do anything else you care about in life. It takes commitment and it takes work, and that's all part of it, but in the end there's nothing more worthwhile than working on your family. It's just the best thing in the world.
As an actor you bring some of your own experiences which can make things easier. You build off of it, but your imagination is always the best thing you have as far as creating things I think specifically for what that character is going through. But you're definitely drawing obviously upon things that you can connect to, and then you kind of mold the change that you're making into something that's right for the character.
I'm the chairman of the board of the Actor's Fund. It's an incredible organization. It helps anybody that has made their living in the performing arts and entertainment: actors, singers, dancers, film producers, agents, managers, ticket takers, writers, anybody in times of need or crisis.
Work with good directors. Without them your play is doomed. At the time of my first play, I thought a good director was someone who liked my play. I was rudely awakened from that fantasy when he directed it as if he loathed it. . . . Work with good actors. A good actor hears the way you (and no one else) write. A good actor makes rewrites easy. A good actor tells you things about your play you didn't know.
The truth is, an actor's performance is the result of work by a lot more people than just the actor. When you see that character portrayed up on screen, there is the work certainly of the actor, but there's the work of the editor, there's the work of what the camera was doing. What the music was doing, all of the above.
Some actors come to casting and ask me, "Didn't you see my previous roles?" We do not work with actors like this. Their previous roles do not matter; I need the actual work with an actor in this particular character that has been written in our script. What matters is flexibility, believability and efficiency of an actor.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!