Nicholas Meyer Quotes

As an actor, I think it's always important to separate yourself from your characters because, when you include yourself in a character, you're taking a liberty that you don't really have unless you're life is that incredibly close to the character.

Acting is about covering up traces of who you are and just being the character. I think it's easier to accept people in roles if you don't know a lot about them.

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

A lot of male actors are method actors and they become the characters which they both were.

I don't believe actors who say they don't bleed into their characters. It's absolutely impossible not to.

There are movies where actors aren't characters but movie stars, being cool beyond belief throughout the whole movie. That is what it is. And we reveal ourselves when we act, very often without noticing. But if I can manage to do a character without showing anything of myself, then that's the ultimate goal for me. No leakage.

You have to be completely in the character, and that's so hard to do. That's why, when they call, 'Cut!,' you often feel yourself shift. Unless you're Daniel Day Lewis, who stays in character all the time, there's a switch that happens.

Some actors are brilliant character guys. They submerge.

The actor is there to translate what's on the page onto the stage or the screen. So I find it important that an actor manages to actually get out of the way, vanish as a person behind the character, never to be seen or talked about again. That's my philosophy.

It's my privilege to work with an actor like Vikram who gets into the skin of the character he is playing, so much so that after the shoot it takes him quite some time to get back to his real self.

I believe I am a character actor who likes to hide behind my characters.

In acting you have to not be yourself. It's like whatever character is put on, you have to just to turn into that person.

As an actor, I think it's really important to be as anonymous as possible. It's your job to convince people that you are somebody else, and so any recognition I'd get away from the screen - well, it's not something I actively seek. To be honest with you, I'm surprised anybody does.

A lot of American actors I work with are in character all day long. You can't talk to them. It's Method and the whole thing.

I don't act in the way other actresses act, in terms of building or creating a character. I don't transform myself into the role, I invest myself in the role.

For me, one of my favorites, director-wise, is Tim Burton. I also really admire the work of actors like Sean Penn. He is probably my favorite actor because of his dedication and commitment to roles, and the ability to morph and change himself when he needs to. It's about dedication and commitment and a passion.

I never act my characters - I am them.

The prosthetics were interesting because the artist was so good that they could just put a Hitchcock mask on me, but you don't want to do that. You're an actor playing Hitchcock, so it's about how much of that you're going to do.

Don't think for a moment that I'm really like any of the characters I've played. I'm not. That's why it's called 'acting'.

I don't mind a little Sturm und Drang. When I was doing 'Riding in Cars With Boys,' I wouldn't smile at anybody, because my character, Bev, was angry at the world. I'm the opposite. Inside my head I'd be like, God, I'll explain to you at the end of shooting that I'm not this person.

To disappear your complete self into a character is quite difficult. I've tried it 85 times, and I've succeeded two or three times.

Well, from an acting point of view, I bear no relation, I don't look like Alfred Kinsey at all, but I thought somewhere in my artist's soul, my actor's soul, I could capture something of the spirit of the man.

I know, because I tried all sorts of ways of being in character, and the best way is to be totally straight.

Actors pull from their own experiences to bring reality to the characters. I wouldn't want to play someone who's a lot like me. There would be no turning it on or off.

You take what you know, and you put it through your own prism. If I play characters that break down or cry, it's Gary Oldman crying; it's not the character crying.