Monica Dolan Quotes

When I act, a part of me goes into the character I am playing.

You use your emotions to try and find them in the character that you're playing.

If you have a very good concept of your character, you can snap into it.

I think any role you need to play not so much transforms but I like to think of it as understanding the psychology of another character.

Trying to be a good actor has to be involved with placing yourself imaginatively in different people's circumstances.

When I'm playing any of my characters, I totally go into the realm of the character. That's when I'm able to come up with the most creative stuff, and I believe that's what connects with the audience.

You know, you do have a self-awareness as an actor.

I just love to act. I like to get away, totally play a different character, someone you can get really involved in knowing. I've gotten really involved in some characters and written down little summaries of where they live and what their families are like.

I love acting and really taking on another person, another life.

Sometimes acting is really cool because it forces you to exercise certain muscles in your personality that you wouldn't normally be called upon in life.

I'm really not interested in showing me or playing me. My gift as an actor, given to me, is to be able to become other people.

When you take on a role, even if the character is somebody that you are dissimilar to, you have to identify with the role and look for an emotional connection even if there is not a biographical one.

Your imagination is your most important tool as an actor, as cheesy as that sounds.

How do I act so well? What I do is I pretend to be the person I'm portraying in the film or play.

You have to come in and be that character when you walk into the room. That's what one of my first acting teachers taught me. You know, don't go in there being Jennifer and then expect to flip and change, because they're not going to have that imagination.

I would go into a place that was quiet and isolated and think about how my character would feel in the situation, considering who he was and what he had been through. I would think about that even up to 30 minutes. And when I felt the character was in my body and I had left, I could walk onto set or into rehearsal.

I immerse myself right into my character whether or not I'm relating to people live as an actor on stage or whatever.

I'm a task-oriented actor. A pretender. And I try to invent my process anew each time I make a new project. So I frown on any method.

I like to be absorbed in what my character's doing.

I try and imagine myself in situations and figure out how I'd have reacted and responded to them, and then bring that insight into my acting. Much of acting is about borrowing from your real-life experiences.

I'm a big believer in sort of sense memory, like using something that you've experienced in order to put yourself in the position that the character is in.

When you're in the head of the character, you feel less self-conscious. If I was just being me, I would feel so exposed and be like, 'Why is there a huge camera in my face?' But, when you're believing in the person that you're playing, you feel protected. It's about being true to that person you're playing.

I'm very much the type of actor that once I embody the character, I could stay in it from the beginning to the end.

I find that I kind of have to sink into the character.

I do enter into character on set, but I can step out of it.