Meryl Streep Quotes

As an actor, I've always wanted to do characters that would help me find my connection with others and connect all of us together. You always want the energy of the character, the spirit of the person, to enter you. I've been doing this for 26 years and some of the things I've done are always with me.

One of the things I like about acting is that, in a funny way, I come back to myself.

One of the things I love about acting is that it reveals a certain something about yourself, but it doesn't reveal your own personal story.

I wanted to imbue Ziggy with real flesh and blood and muscle, and it was imperative that I find Ziggy and be him.

It's so funny, you go to acting school thinking you're going to learn how to be other people, but really it taught me how to be myself. Because it's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience.

That's what I love about acting, you get to find little pieces of yourself in every character you play.

I wake up and play a different person every day. Playing all these different characters and trying to figure out who your true authentic self is at the core of that as you're playing all these different roles, and man, that self-awareness starts to come into effect. And you start to see who you really are.

Being an actor, imitating to the point of inhabiting the lives of others, may simply be a way of continuing to do what I learned to do as a boy - to travel, mentally and physically.

Acting is way of making yourself exist.

I don't know, I feel like any role that I play is a little piece of me, whether it's their perspective, maybe how they dress, what they think is funny, their loyalty to their friends. It all stems from Kiersey.

What's nice about acting is that you're not just left with yourself all the time, but you get to see the world through so many different people's eyes.

That's the wonderful thing about acting - you play a role. It's about humanity, rather than labeling.

I think, when you're an actor, it kind of enables you to fully inhabit all of the youngest parts of yourself.

Being an actor requires a lot of self-analysis and reflection. The better you know who you are, the better you are at becoming another person.

I don't think there's a certain part of a character I take with me. There's a certain part of me I leave with each character, though.

I think there are parts of myself in every character I play.

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

I can't stand outside myself and be anybody else.

I tend to get comfortable with the dialogue and find out who the person is in the script and try to hit that. People are sort of independent of their occupations and their pastimes. You don't play a politician or a fireman or a cowboy - you just play a person.

For a writer, they say write what you know. As a performer, you find it in yourself, in your heart. You relate to the character. You try to live it, try to have it be real for you.

As an actor, I don't really think you find yourself. I mean, once you find yourself, I think it becomes boring and you become set in your ways. I think, as an actor I think it's not a bad thing but more of a gift. It's something you're always doing as an actor. You're adjusting constantly.

Acting is the business of truth, so that we can see ourselves reflected back and learn.

The idea of transformation - playing something I'm not - is the bit I enjoy most about acting.

You can spend a bit of yourself when you give yourself to a character. At the end of a job, you have to remind yourself who and what you are.

Like, that was weird in 'Hamlet 2,' because I played myself there, fully myself, but then I realized, 'Oh, I'm not playing myself. I'm some weird version of myself.' So as an actress, you're always playing something, I don't even know who I am, how could I become me? I don't know what that is.