Stacy Keach Quotes

I don't really have choices in the material I get. So I have to make the choices in the way I play the characters.

With any actor, if you know your character well enough, you'll know pretty much what he would say under any circumstance, or whatever situation might rear its head.

I'm not really a guy who draws on things from my own past. I think if you're a competent actor with a good imagination, and if it's on the page, it makes your job a lot easier. If it's well written, it allows your imagination to run wild and draw inspiration from that.

I don't normally think of a specific actor. I concentrate on the character, and then when we get into pre-production, that's how names come up.

When you start out on a project as an actor, you know, you approach the character from the standpoint of maybe writing a list - even if it's a mental list that you make - of the adjectives that the character has or that character possesses.

I find it easier to play someone who is so far from me because you create someone - you build this person based on the story and the script, with the director.

There are always practical decisions to be made about any character you're playing.

If I read a script and find it engaging and I start making choices in my mind on how to approach the work, than that's a good indication that it is something worth pursuing.

When you shoot a film, you have very little time to waste, and I try to go into the character as soon as possible and stay there as much as I can.

My job as an actor is to cover and expose in varying allowance that - so that the audience can peek through the window to the people I create.

In every film, whether it's a fictional character or not, you create an idea of the character and for me I always do a bad impersonation to start with.

All actors bring something unexpected to the role because they have to translate what's on the page and make a real character out of the black-and-white text that's there in the script.

I don't sit around and study the pages of a script over and over again.

A script narration is like watching a film, and I react to it like an audience with my own instinct. After that, I look for what is my character, what will I bring to the table in that role, how challenging will it be.

As an actor, it's hard to approach any character with negatives.

I've approached every character I've ever played with a poem, first and foremost.

When I act, I try to understand the character, why she's behaving like that.

As an actor, I know it is my job to shape myself for a role - any role.

As an actor, you have to find reasons why your character made her decisions, and you have to empathise with her.

Sometimes you get the luxury of having a script for a really long time, and you can get to talk with the director or the producers, and evolve with the role.

The audience basically likes complex characters, and bringing out the complexities is the actor's job. The audience doesn't have the script, the actor does.

Acting is a symbiotic process, it is an amalgamation of many many things put together and when there is a call for action, that's when you surrender and the moment of truth comes out, that's when you perform. That is the process for every good actor.

I'm not a critic. I'm an actor. I see the role I get given on the page. I try to bring it to life as best as I can.

There's no set rule, but when you look at the script, you start thinking about this person and how to create this human being on screen. You dig deeper into a script.

That's what frees up an actor: when you don't have to be responsible to likability.