Joan Chen Quotes

In theater, you're playing characters. You believe you're somebody else, and you're acting.

Acting is experience with something sweet behind it.

In acting, you draw so much on your private life.

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

Acting is an expression of imagination. No firsthand knowledge is necessary.

Theatre gives you wings as an actor.

Acting is what happens on the way.

Acting is the most communicative thing I can imagine doing.

In every character you play, as much as you hate to admit it as an actor, but there's an element of you that you bring to it. Either the character helps you discover that element of you or the other way around, where that element of you helps you discover the character.

I think you have to draw from any character and bring it to yourself as much as possible.

In acting process, it's very difficult to explain. It's something very intimate, very private.

Performing, for me, has always been a very inner process.

Actors have to make you believe that it's happening for the first time and all that jazz and make it human and at the same time entertain you.

Standing in public in other people's clothes, pretending to be someone else. It's a strange way for a grown man to make a living.

I'm enjoying it, but I still don't know why I'm hooked on acting.

Acting is invigorating. But I don't analyse it too much. It's like a dog smelling where it's going to do its toilet in the morning.

The interesting thing about acting is using all your own stuff and having some kind of personal catharsis while you're working.

Acting is way of making yourself exist.

Onstage I'm the one in control - I'm not at the mercy of how an editor chooses to put the scene together later. I can do things onstage that I would never do in real life. It's very freeing.

Acting for me is not that quid pro quo.

If I wanted to do something on stage, I wanted it to be something I could really get into and feel.

The beauty of acting is you just get lost in it. You play the character, and you hope that it works.

There are elements of myself in every character I do, just because you take from your real life experiences and sprinkle those into your character.

As rewarding as a good film role can be, there is just nothing like getting up on a stage and taking an audience for a ride.

I think it's necessary to identify with anything - with any character you play, there's got to be something in common, so you can link up to that person, even if it's like one tiny thing. But it's equally fun to play somebody completely different, and trying to find what that thing is to make it.