I think acting can be very frustrating, and there's no experience that doesn't make you a better actor. So people may choose to explore their other talents.
People say to me, 'Oh, being a mother must make you a better actor,' and I think, 'Well, I never sleep, I have very little time to think about anything except when I'm actually there.' I wonder whether that makes me a better actor. I think it must on some level.
Acting is something I appreciate, and I think it's been an amazing experience. But I'm not passionate about acting the way you probably should be to call yourself an actor.
Acting is something different to everybody. I just know that if you watch an actor or actress getting better and better, I think that's them just understanding themselves better and better.
It's the hardest thing for an actor not to speak because you take away their main tool. So for an actor, it's very frustrating and very challenging, and very few people can pull it off. Some actors can say a thousand words with just a look, and it's a unique gift.
With acting, it [auditioning] is very frustrating. I'm not very good at auditions. Sometimes I audition for a role and I'm like, I'd be really funny in that role, but I'm not good at auditions so I guess I'm not getting that role. It's a very frustrating job.
Acting, music, painting... it's very subjective. So what I might think is a great actor, you might think is not a very good actor at all.
Anytime you get to work with an actor who is beyond you in experience and talent, I feel like they make you a better actor. You really bring up your game.
I think theatre is by far the most rewarding experience for an actor. You get 4 weeks to rehearse your character and then at 7:30 pm you start acting and nobody stops you, acting with your entire soul.
Writing has made me a better actor. Acting has made me a better writer. So why wouldn't directing make me a better actor and writer?
I think one of the biggest things is the budget.For a studio, becomes a very big challenge to make sure that movie will work even better on every level. As an actor I don't think in those terms when I make a movie.
The acting I got into by doing what we call pantomime, when I was sixteen. And, there were loads of very pretty girls in the show. I realized; I found out very early on, that the lead comic gets the girl. So, that was cool. When I went to university, I studied Economic Social History. And drama. That kind of got me into it. My main passion was to make films. It was never to be an actor. At that time, there weren't many opportunities for a working class Scottish actor. It was kind of an English thing. And it required a certain mannered cerebral acting style that I couldn't relate to.
I think I'm an actor because I have very strong imagination and empathy. I never studied acting, but those two qualities are exactly the qualities that make for an activist.
I don't have any theories about acting, and I don't think about how to do it, except that an actor shouldn't take himself too seriously, and shouldn't try to make acting something it isn't.
Sometimes acting and politics make a very bad combination. I think that sometimes people take me less seriously in my work for the UN because I am an actor.
I watched a film with a very famous, great, great actor, I won't mention his name because everyone loves his memory, but I thought, "God he was acting a lot." Great actor, but nonstop acting. Wall to wall, fitted-carpet acting.