A Quote by Tom Stoppard

I'm hopeless at looking into myself and trying to see how things are working and why. — © Tom Stoppard
I'm hopeless at looking into myself and trying to see how things are working and why.
I think that's what the most fascinating part of getting to know someone is - to see how they do things, and how their way of doing things is different from your way of doing things, and the fun of trying to do it their way and to see what value there is in looking at things from their perspective.
Many of the traits in my characters are exaggerations of things I see in myself. But in 'How Should a Person Be?' I wasn't trying to write about myself so much as a combination of myself and these women I was seeing in our culture.
It really was something, to see Ram Bahadur Bomjon, apparently living without food or water. Before I went on that trip I'd asked advice on it from a very wise person who I love and revere - basically trying to see if I was somehow disrespecting Buddhism by trying to write about it, and also looking for some grounding on what stance to take ... and my friend said, "Well, why don't you just go and see?" And I hear that in my head all the time now: "Why don't you go and see?"
I like it when people are kind and I like people who are looking for collaborators. Sometimes you can feel like a moving prop, and that could be amazing, you can be a prop in somebody's incredible vision, but I'm more interested in people who are looking for actors they can collaborate with and make something together with. I like stretching myself, I like trying new things out, but I'm really interested in working with directors who have a very specific style and a unique way of working.
The human animal is a fascinating beast. Watching people and trying to learn how and why they do things, and to engage in the somewhat futile attempt to explain them...it's my reason for living I guess...to ask 'why?'. I don't know what else to do with myself. In some strange way it's probably an attempt to understand myself and my own relationship to the world.
The first time I made myself up, I was looking at my reflection in the mirror and it wasn't me looking back. It allowed me to do things I couldn't do as myself. I found out how powerful that was and how much that can mean to an actor.
The first time I made myself up, I was looking at my reflection in the mirror and it wasnt me looking back. It allowed me to do things I couldnt do as myself. I found out how powerful that was and how much that can mean to an actor.
I've been trying to be the model that I wanted to see when I was a teenager, looking through magazines and not seeing myself, looking at pictures that were so edited.
You already feel unsure of yourself, and then you see your worst fears in print. It really knocked me - which is why, I think, I was working, working, working, because I was trying to run away from the fact that I thought I couldn't do it.
I definitely have a tendency to only see the blemishes of things, and see lots of things about my acting that I don't like. I think I've gotten a little easier on myself, or at least a little more usefully critical of myself. I think before, I just couldn't take looking at myself at all.
It is hopeless trying to go forward when you are looking backward.
I keep training hard, keep working out, keep looking at my fights, and I wonder, 'If I was to fight me, how would I beat me?' It's like having a boat with a bunch of holes. I'm trying to patch up all the holes. If I was to fight myself, I'd take advantage of certain things. I've got to know my opponent is thinking the same thing.
In photos, I don't know who the real me is - it's all pretend, just pretend. There's not much of myself in my work. If I'm looking in the mirror and I'm working, I'm looking at my make-up and my hair. It's not the same as looking at myself.
A lot of times I'm on my own trying to find research material and things like that and trying to educate myself on the world and the film that I'm working on.
My first book was called, 'Mountain, Get Out of My Way,' where I did an autobiographical sketch, if you will, looking back at myself and looking back at things in my life, and juxtaposing them against things that are happening in other people's lives and trying to be motivational.
I don't want to fetishize the past. I want there to be a natural sequence coming out of a synthesis of the ideas and information that I gather together as a result of looking at things that are in the world. I'm trying to bring forward signs or signals based on what I see and my responses to these things. I'm trying to leave a trail that will be useful to other people in the future. It has to do with making something that contains a synthesis of the information, and then consequently to make one's deliberations visible, to allow other people to follow them. That's how I see my role.
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