Lee Strasberg Quotes

What I've learned about acting is that it needs to be mysterious. If you overthink how a beat needs to be played, it can trip you up.

Acting has always been instinctive to me.

I think back story can help guide your choices, but when you're playing a scene, you're not making choices; you're just intuitive.

I think people who are regarded as better actors must have better instincts because, at the end of the day, once they say 'action,' it's you who has to do it right. You can do all the research and preparation or none at all, but it's your instincts that tell you, 'No, I'll do it like this.'

I don't really have a process. I'm very much an in-the-moment actress. I suppose I just kind of wing it because I feel that as long as I know my character, I should be able to be spontaneous on set.

I love an acting challenge, and I love getting to sit down with my script and do all my drama work.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

When I rehearse, it ends up doing more harm than good. I think I work a little bit better when it's right off the bat. Mostly, I try to wrap my head around a role as much as I can without rehearsing and then kind of make it as fresh as possible on the day.

That's what sets apart one actor from another, and that you can't teach. You can't give someone that. When you're working, putting a character together, or in a scene, that's where things will happen that you have to have the intuition to notice them, and to register them.

Mostly I work really unconsciously, and I think if the scenes are really well written, which they are, and if I just throw myself into it, I don't really think about it.

When I started acting, it was really the way for me to be able to communicate.

I don't work out a lead section and practice it for a day and then lay it down. I don't do that. The first time I do something I think is expressive or really cool, that's what's actually on the recording.

I like doing a lot of research, and then you get there, you're in wardrobe, and then you're just reacting to what the other person is doing. The other actor is reacting to what you're doing, and it's this great back and forth. Because you've done all this research, you can use some of it or throw a lot of it out. You can get lost in it.

Once I'm on set, the only thing I'm really interested in is being in the room. Being present. And trusting that what I've done is sufficient, and I'm also trusting that I've also left room for magic.

I walk into a scene, and I do the scene. That's my job. I don't have an objective. I have the words, and I have whoever I'm playing with.

Acting is just a process of relaxation, actually. Knowing the text so well and trusting that the instinct and the subconscious mind, whatever you want to call it, is going to take over.

When you do a drama, you are challenged to trust your inner voice much more. Because when you put a comedy in front of even a 25-person screening, you know whether it's working or not. The barometer is overt.

The muscles you flex in theater are muscles that you really need. I must always find a way to get back there. It's irreplaceable.

I love acting. It is so much more real than life.

I have learned a lot from jazz. I compare good acting to jazz music. The more you study and prepare as an actor, the more equipped you are to live in the moment. Just like the gifted musicians in my dad's quartet, it takes a courageous actor to be free.

I think I think in the moment. So when I'm in character, I'm in character, and I'm obviously thinking about what's going on around me, but it's easier to do stuff when you're in character.

The immediacy of improvisation is intoxicating, but there's an intimacy that you get that's very different when you're doing drama.

As an actor, the only thing you have is your instinct and your imagination.

If the actor doesn't feel it's right, that's when you say, 'OK, let's find something else.' It's then that you get the natural moment.

You might only get three takes to do a scene; sometimes it takes longer than that to find those moments.