Top 1200 Character Actors Quotes & Sayings - Page 5

There are plenty of actors who've caught the singing bug and vice versa, but with musical performers, you're constantly a persona - which is something I love about acting: you play a character, you leave and you get to be yourself again.

Through this experience [of makimg movies], I recognized what an extraordinary set of personality traits it takes to be able to succeed in that world, and I was really drawn to the character work we could build with actors as a result.

The interesting thing with child actors is that kids are natural actors. They're wonderful actors, and most kids are acting all the time. They're imagining they're out in the yard playing. They're imagining that things happened, and they can get very vivid.

I do feel fortunate in that I am probably allowed more often to be a character actor then most actors are allowed to be, and I don't take that lightly or superficially at all. I mean, I really do appreciate it.

You work with every actor differently. It's like if you're a mother, if you have children, some children need more discipline. Other children you back off of a little bit and let them be. It's the same way with actors. Some actors need a lot of hand holding. Other actors like to be let be and you let them go. Some actors like to be nudged just a little bit. Some actors don't mind line readings.

When I talk about character work, I don't really feel like i do much as an actor when I look at other great actors who win big awards for doing incredible transformations.

There's not a lot of talking between actors - either between actors or between actors and directors. People think that they sit in rooms and talk about psychology and motivations. I don't think that happens much.

For me, pressure is self-imposed, and it's good for me. The best actors are the most prepared because it's all imaginary and you have to know the character inside out.

Great actors can transform, but sometimes there's just this person who speaks right to the role. When they walk in the room, you know they're that character. That is something you can't teach an actor; that's something that's luck and chance.

Most actors will tell you this - I don't really know how to connect, empathize with, or make worthy of any revelation a character that doesn't have love in there somewhere, that doesn't have an idealism or an empathy in there somewhere.

Usually I approach to acting completely blindfolded. I read the script, I connect to the character, and then I try not to think about it too much until I'm there and I'm in wardrobe and I'm with the other actors and we're going through the scene once.

I've heard of actors like De Niro and Streep who stay in character all day long. And Daniel Day-Lewis did it for 'My Left Foot.' I don't do that myself.

Being an actor myself I realize that all actors believe they are qualified to play any role. If you showed me a script with a black woman character I would tell you that I could do it. That is what we do. We act as if we are someone else.

There are so many stage actors on TV but you wouldn't know they were stage actors. And film and TV actors are going to the stage as well, so the crossover is great now.

As a child, I always liked dressing up and getting into character, and actors are lucky in being able to retain that playfulness, though we do seem to find it hard to grow up.

Every industry, there are rogues and bad actors. There could be rogues and bad actors in journalism. Rogues and bad actors in medicine. Rogues and bad actors in the legal community.

To be an actor for 30-odd years trying to become recognized, and to end up playing a full prosthetic and a character 3 foot 9', or something like that, is... well, it just shows that you can get actors to do anything.

The truth is, I'm a character guy. That's how I see myself. I always see the role as being far more interesting and important than I am... not all actors approach it that way.

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 decided I would open this little actors' workshop I always told actors to look for. That gave me something to do on Wednesday nights, and after about a year of that, I realized that some of the things I was saying to actors probably had broader application. I ran into a magazine called 'Speakers For Free.'

Actors, I think, are all the same. Both Korean actors and American actors are all very sensitive people, and they are all curious to know what the director thinks of them and how they are evaluated, and they try to satisfy the director. And they like it if you listen carefully to their opinions and accept them.

I think all great actors - and I don't classify myself as one of them, incidentally - but I think all great actors listen well and I've learned that from a lot of the very good actors with whom I've worked - to really listen to what people say.

I like directors who come ready to challenge you to ask the right questions about your character, and I know that directors appreciate that in actors as well.

I appreciate actors who work very hard to get at the truth of the character they're playing. That speaks to me, and I try to protect that process because I value the focus and intention behind it.

I am not one of those actors who dwells on the histrionics and the subtext and future text of the character. I deal with the scenes that I'm doing at that specific time, because if I do that, they play in more of a real way.

My job as a double was always to put [actors] at ease. My job was to make my character, or the actress that I was doubling, look as badass as possible by being there.

I like to imagine a person's psyche to be like a boardinghouse full of characters. The ones who show up regularly and who habitually follow the house rules may not have met other long-term residents who stay behind closed doors, or who only appear at night. An adequate theory of character must make room for character actors, for the stuntmen and animal handlers, for all the figures who play bit parts and produce unexpected acts. They often make the show fateful, or tragic, or farcically absurd.

I love when actors can let go of where and how they have to do it, and just that we do it. That we are flawed and human, and don't worry about how we look or who we are, or that it seems too old of a character if we're still young.

I think the love scenes are very powerful and they're not trying to simply show the bodies of the actors but trying to reflect the inner feelings of the character so it's easier in that way.

I realise that certain actors project their own image onto the screen - those who are the same on as they are off. But I've never had the necessary statistics to be able to do that sort of thing, and so, anyway, I always wanted to be a character actor.

I really like to work with theater actors. Theater actors tend to do lots of independent movies, and those are the actors that I like.

What character actors want to do is investigate new types of people and present them in all their idiosyncrasies, psychological complexities, and contradictory stupidities. That has been one of the great delights over our seven collaborations.

Great actors come with depth about how their character sees the world, and they completely defend it. They could defend it in a court of law, down to the reason the patient deserved this.

One of the great myths in America is that sports build character. They can and they should. Indeed, sports may be the perfect venue in which to build character. But sports don't build character unless a coach possesses character and intentionally teaches it. Sports can team with ethics and character and spirituality; virtuous coaching can integrate the body with the heart, the mind, and the soul.

Luckily, I have been offered the chance to play a South American, Hispanic and even a character from the Middle East in films. There are also a lot of TV series in the U.S. that have a strong presence of actors from India.

You have the massive world that was created by Marvel, and then you have these very intimate actors around you. There was as much character work on this as there would be on a little independent film. So, I felt very fortunate in that sense.

Even the finest actors will have great difficulty showing somebody's loneliness. To put an actor on a chair and ask him to do nothing and yet tell the viewer everything about the character, it's a difficult task.

Style has become a crucial differentiating factor for most actors in the industry. I generally choose my look based on the character I essay. I research a lot on the Internet and pick something that would suit my face.

As much as most of the actors were kind of curious to know what their character meant in relation to the script and to the plot, they really were quite happy to be part of the adventure of not knowing.

I was a coat-checker at Orso, and all these wonderful actors were coming in, and it was exciting to me, so I started going to classes, and my excuse was, 'I'll be a better songwriter if I can understand how to play a character.' Well, that couldn't be farther from the truth.

When I started my career on TV, I never knew how my role or character was going to shape up or turn out to be. It was a challenging role for me and I learnt a lot from my senior actors.

Some celebrities, it's interesting, because they're fantastic playing a character when somebody is writing the lines for them, and they're amazing actors, but they're not as comfortable on television in front of a live audience and just having a conversation and being themselves.

A lot of my colleagues are content to be character actors who are always in the background. I'm not that guy. I'm the guy who wants the limelight. Gimme the ball and I'll run it through a brick wall for you. I'll be your biggest soldier.

Of course when you toss a stick of dynamite at a cartoon character, he can come back to life again in the next frame. Getting the same effect with actors is going to be a lot tougher.

In my entire career, only two actors challenged me as villain in my films. One is Raghuvaran's character of Mark Antony in 'Baasha' and Ramya Krishnan's portrayal of Neelambari in 'Padaiyappa.'

The only way to really portray a character and tell a story well is to be flexible internally. And one of the ways we're blocked as actors is being aware of where our bodies are carrying tension.

Most actors and actresses are performative as people. It goes part and parcel with the profession and New York actors who are out of work, or actors anywhere out of work, are manic because you never know when the next job is going to come.

I'm really, really happy with what I do for a living. I mean, that's what I consider work, like being on set, bringing a character to life and, you know, working with other actors and directors and stuff.

I love the idea of seeing a character - I mean, there's nothing like seeing a character and having the huge detail and roundness that a character in a book can give you. It's so much more full than a character in a script can give you, isn't it?

The number one reason for the death of young actors' careers is people get so used to seeing them playing that one character that they can't accept them as anyone else.

A woman can be demure, lady-like and the most prim and proper character, and still have a toughness and resiliency as apparent as a superhero-type female character or a warrior or soldier type. It's all about the story, the character, and the course of events in that piece of work and how that character is presented.

To be an actor for 30-odd years trying to become recognized, and to end up playing a full prosthetic and a character 3 foot 9?, or something like that, is... well, it just shows that you can get actors to do anything.

There are so many roles that actors like Nawazuddin Siddiqui or Manoj Bajpayee or Irrfan have done. And they make every character iconic. They are the masters of their art... I want to be like that.

There are actors who do various different shades of a similar character, which is fine. But I prefer the Cillian Murphy school of doing something that takes you so far outside yourself that it's an incredible challenge and adventure.

I know in Britain with 'Doctor Who' all the classic actors, and the people who you'd really want to, work on the show. I like that the fact that 'Torchwood' has actors that want to be involved from the stage. It has raised our game, and I'm just happy for good actors who want to be in sci-fi shows who love the genre.

It's a strange thing that we're actors, and we're always playing a character, and then suddenly we're at a place like Cannes, and we're getting photographed as ourselves, and you're like, 'What do you do?'

I think I've grown up in an era where character acting on film has become less desirable for the producers and directors and therefore the audience. They have got used to the people that those actors really are.

But some actors I have met possess an intelligence that I can only dream of. It's about character, it's about behavior. They understand things about people that I simply don't see.

I'm not the writer who says, "You have to say it exactly as I wrote it," because you don't get good work. You want somebody who's going to bring something interesting to it and really create a character with you. You see that with certain actors.

It depends on the scripts and the character and just everybody involved, the other actors and directors. It's just a gut feeling when you find something, you're like, 'Yes, I want to sink my teeth into that.'