Yorgos Lanthimos Quotes

Sometimes the writing can be so good that the actor doesn't really have to do anything.

You can have good writing, but a great actor will make it feel and sound like great writing. You can have great writing, and mediocre actors will make it feel mediocre. Without the actors, you have nothing.

I just want the actors to put their faith in the language. Just let the words do the work.

You can't act for the editing. You just go in and do the scene the way you think is right.

Drama is more focused, and it reveals itself to you, whereas comedy is just right there when you first read it.

Sometimes you can just hear the actor in the language.

There's a rhythm and a cadence in a scene, and when an actor understands without any real direction from you, then that's a very valuable gift. And some people get it, and some people don't.

Good acting is all in the writing. If it isn't on the page, then it really won't make any difference. You cannot act on force of personality alone.

An actor has to embody a role.

But I would like to think that it's the actor that makes the difference in these cases. Not the director, not the guy that wrote the book, not the guy that adapted it for the screen, but the actor.

Whether it's a double take or a spit take or an extra-long pause before a reaction or a line, I try to be as cognizant as possible about the technical end of it. So I think the physical stuff works easier for me than maybe for others who are more just going on instinct.

I really think that as good of a job as you do as a writer, you're absolutely indebted to the actors that have to deliver that material.

The role of an actor is to make every character believable.

Actors don't need a lot of talk beyond the first few sentences. They may say they don't draw on their own life, but all actors do.

Ultimately, however, the script an actor enlivens is someone else's words.

When you read a play, the words speak to you. When you read a script, there's no way you can tell if that's the way that movie will turn out.

Some actors don't even read the stage directions at all.

Being on 'The Office' prepared me for drama. Comedy got me ready, but once you get down to it, they're two sides of the same thing. I mean, the delivery has to be different - in drama, there's more time to breathe, and comedy's all about hitting the joke.

You can say your lines a million different ways and play your character a million different ways and still hit the common, agreed-upon finish line.

I think the actor has two responsibilities. One is to be visually compelling, and the other to recite the lines as written by the writers.

I don't play roles, I play characters. There is a vast difference between the two.

The conversation of how you do a play is my favorite conversation in the whole wide world: what a play is, why it's different than anything else, the math of the way that human behavior has to be calibrated theatrically versus anything else.

I work according to the kind of character they want me to play.

It is very nice to have good actors with you.

Being from the theatre, I am always interpreting someone else's thoughts and feelings.