Top 1200 Character Actor Quotes & Sayings

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.

I have a problem with the term 'leading man.' It's so limiting; it involves not upsetting anyone. Obviously, we have anti-heroes now, but if we're talking about the two tropes - character actor and leading man - I would so rather be a character actor. That's why I have a career.

I lost 90 pounds and my blood pressure went down to a normal level and the salt in my urine disappeared. And that was when I had to make the transition from fat character actor to thin character actor.

I think, as an actor, I would find it a little run-of-the-mill doing procedurals where it's the same sort of thing week in and week out. Your character doesn't get to grow very much, which, purely from an actor's point of view, you want to see an arc of your character.

None of the actor methods ever discussed what it would be like to play a character on film for over a decade, and what it must be like to return to a character and imagine the time off-screen, which is interesting. There's something as an actor that I enjoy about evolving characters.

The only thing that I know how to do as an actor, as a trained actor, is you can't villainize the character you're playing. Whether it's a fictional character or a real character. Because then you operate from that sort of negative point of view, and you can't humanize him.

When you start out on a project as an actor, you know, you approach the character from the standpoint of maybe writing a list - even if it's a mental list that you make - of the adjectives that the character has or that character possesses.

The ability to stretch my range into all genres and characters is something I take great pleasure in doing. I thoroughly enjoy it. I consider myself a character actor, though some think of me as a leading man. As an actor, I love shifting gears from character to character, and the more range I can expand, the better.

When you are a character actor they trust you will go in and give them a full character and leave.

There's always down time when you're an actor, especially a character actor.

I like the wild characters. I like the idea of being a character actor without being a character actor.

I suppose the underlying current for me is the idea of not doing something I've done before. I call myself a character actor and I'm always trying to stay a character actor.

If I'd made it right away as an actor, I would've stopped at a certain level and stayed there, probably as a character actor.

Just working on a character and his mannerisms, but not looking the part, is not my thing. It is your duty as an actor to be honest to the character.

It makes it fun. When an actor plays a character, you want what that character wants. Otherwise it doesn't look authentic. So I really want to defeat Jimmy - I mean Jimmy as the character.

As a young actor, I was advised to bide my time. Back then, there weren't good roles for someone like me. There were handsome leading men and character actors for smaller supporting roles. But I was told to hang in there, and it was good advice. We're all character actors now. Even a handsome man is a character actor at my age.

This is a corny actor thing to say, but the first step is that you can't judge the character that you're playing. If it's built in three-dimensional fashion, you'll just play a character who's going out and seeking the best version of their life that they can find. That gives the character an accessibility that everyone can identify with.

The secret lies in the actor's personal satisfaction. How can the audience be moved by a character the actor himself does not believe in?

Any actor who judges his character is a fool - for every role you play you've got to absorb that character's motives and justifications.

I'm a character actor, so as a character actor, I'm always looking for something interesting.

When I'm writing, I try to have the mask of my character on as I'm walking through the world. When I'm not at my desk, the rest of the time, I try to stay in that character and see the world the way that character would It's almost like method acting in a way — keeping the character close the way the actor keeps a script close and always tries to be in character.

I am a method actor, but I'm also a film actor as well as a method actor. Characters that don't have humility, whether they are heroes or villains, are hard to relate to. All characters in every aspect of what we do should have humility. If they don't, then they're a cartoon character.

I’d like to be the kind of actor who is remembered for my character. You know how there are cases where even when you watch all the way through the end of a drama, you remember the actor’s name, not the character’s. I want my character’s name to be more remembered than mine.

I'm an actor. I'll take a lead if it's offered. The really good actors can fill a character, no matter what the role is. A good leading man is a character actor; a good character actor can be a leading man.

It's so much easier to write for an actor than for an imaginary character and then try to fit that character to an actor. It doesn't work very often in my experience.

I think of myself as a character actor, compared to a straight actor. I know a character actor in England is pretty much the same as in the States; you're actually hired to put on terrible teeth and stuff like that.

When an actor gets a role, especially in series television where he really is the part, the audience never thinks of another actor playing that role. If they accept you in the role, then they can't separate the actor from the character.

Sometimes an actor performs a character, but sometimes an actor just performs. With writing, I don't think it's performing a character, really, if the character you're performing is yourself. I don't see that as playing a role. It's just appearing in public.

Every director is always directing around the play. If you have an actor who really doesn't get the character well enough, you have to direct the play around that character. You have to make choices with that actor. If you have an actor that really doesn't get the role and has certain visions of the role, sometimes you have to direct around that actor.

First of all, the actor needs to get out of the character's way. You follow the character without judgment or prejudice or preconceived ideas.

I think, for every actor, the most challenging part of playing a character, specially a real-life character, is to convince yourself that you are the character.

When you go for something because you're curious about it, you get psyched up about the chance of getting into it. It's like an actor meets a role, and you slip into that body and see what happens, to experience certain conditions, to adopt a certain character. Even shooting is a study of the character. I think both the character and the actor, and eventually the filmmaker - myself - are finding a way to accept their environment and being accepted and feel comfortable of themselves.

The delineation between the actor and his part is a practical matter. When the camera runs, you want the actor to be the character.

I guess every character has a little bit of the actor - I guess for every character you play, the actor has to allow a little bit of their own character to show through.

Age is as much an asset for character players as it is for good wine. Human experiences, both good and bad, leave their marks on one's face and bearing. A few lines on the face and a few gray hairs coupled with the idiosyncrasies an actor adopts throughout life help out round out the actor's personality. So far as I'm concerned, the older a character actor gets, the firmer his position is.

The interesting thing about my character Sylar is that my strengths as an actor seemed to go completely against the shape of a character in the shadow.

Sometimes you'll see interviews about an actor who was asked to hit the weight room to develop his body for the character, and you hear them complaining about the egg white omelettes they had to eat and the tortures of hitting the gym twice a day - I find that to be a bit saddening, it's all a part of becoming the character and as an actor, that is your job.

I'm very grateful that I'm the kind of actor where I'm not some character actor. I can't disappear into a world.

I was always a character actress and never a sex symbol. Even when I was the leading lady, I was a character actor.

Pransaab was a great character actor. What he has achieved as an actor, I cannot think of achieving even a part of it.

Any good actor is a character actor.

I believe in method acting. Whenever I'm working on a character, I start behaving like him. I start doing these things which the character would normally do. Maybe that's the way I function as an actor, and I believe in it. And that's how I try and portray a character.

I was never really a character actor - I was a leading man who was always cast as a character. I wanted to be Jack Nicholson or Jean Gabin.

How you look is part of what acting is, but the way I look at it, every actor is a character actor. Someone once told me at a casting, 'You're a character actor in a leading man's body,' and I can live with that.

An actor is here to perform. For example, if a character is a Punjabi or a Bihari, and the actor is not, doesn't mean we have to cast an actor from that region. If an actor can perform, they can portray anyone because an actor is here to try different roles.

I didn't really look like a character actor, yet those were the roles I loved to play. If you were a character actor who didn't necessarily look like a character actor, you had to play bad guys.

I never saw myself as a character actor or a lead actor; I've only seen myself as just an actor.

I started off as an actor thinking that I would be this Romeo, this dashing leading man. It turns out that I'm a character actor.

I don't have any room in my heart for that character [Kevin McCallister ]. I like the actor [Macaulay Culkin], but the character, no.

The great exception to that, of course, is Johnny Depp, who is absolutely the ultimate character actor. Johnny Depp is the future of the character actor and thanks to his success maybe we will see the return of an era when my sort of actor is back in vogue. It's not in vogue for me to be in Hollywood movies as lots of different people.

My only job as an actor is to try and understand the character and, to the best of my ability, bring this character to life.

I don't see a difference between the idea of what an actor does and what someone supposes a character actor is, really.

As an actor, you don't want to know the beginning and end to your character's arc. It makes it more fun. You're not playing the end. You're playing it realistically. You don't know where this character is going to go and what's going to happen to him, which just makes it more interesting for the viewers to watch. They're going on the journey with you, as the actor and the character.

A good actor makes clear the meaning of the words. A better actor gives also the emotion of the part. The best actor adds emotion of which the character is unconscious.

There's really one character for every actor. The voyage is to find that one character.

Whether or not I am a 'character actor' or any other kind of actor, I really don't know. When people call me a 'character actor,' I fail to understand what it means.

I'm Irish and very proud of being Irish, but as an actor, your extraction should be secondary, really. You should be able to embody whatever character it is, wherever the character comes from. That's always been important, for me. I'm an actor who's Irish, not an Irish actor.

As an actor, you have to be able to put yourself into the character since your job is literally making the character and the situation he is in believable.

Dustin Hoffman said this one time, that if he hadn't made it as a film star, he would still be happy as a character actor because he was a character actor because of his face from day one, so he would always work in the theater.

Because as an actor, I really feel you cannot judge a character. You have to totally commit to that character. And for me to totally commit to the character, I have to find those places where I understand the sequence of behavior.