Carmen Cusack Quotes

I always enjoy impersonating my characters in the first-person singular.

I've played American characters so many times now, it's so natural to me. But when I play American, I stay in the American accent from the minute I get the job till the minute I wrap.

I love accents. It's a great way to separate yourself when playing a role.

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.

To me the voice has always been the way to start any character. Once I find that, I'm good to go.

As actors, you play people who are not yourselves!

I like to mumble when I act, 'cause I think it's more realistic. For some reason, the impediment has given me the accent of a Mexican gangster.

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.

How do I act so well? What I do is I pretend to be the person I'm portraying in the film or play.

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.

Actors who say they can dive inside a character are either schizophrenic or lying.

I never noticed my voice. I did become aware as a little kid at camp that I liked doing accents. We'd do plays and skits, and I realized I loved speaking in voices that weren't my own.

Acting is not just impersonating your character.

Voices have always been my way into a character. I usually approach the voice first.

I believe in method acting. Whenever I'm working on a character, I start behaving like him. I start doing these things which the character would normally do. Maybe that's the way I function as an actor, and I believe in it. And that's how I try and portray a character.

When I'm acting, I just come up with people I've known, and I stick with it.

The actor's job is to put themselves in the shoes of the character they are trying to portray as truthfully as possible.

I appreciate actors who work very hard to get at the truth of the character they're playing. That speaks to me, and I try to protect that process because I value the focus and intention behind it.

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.

I used to think the actor's job was immersing himself completely in another personality.

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.

I love acting... I really do. I love crawling into another character's skin. That's something that I've always, always, always, always wanted.

Transformational acting was the reason why I became an actor in the first place. Your hair and make-up and the costume are the tools that you have, and it makes you feel like that person. When you look in the mirror, you don't feel like yourself, and it changes the way you move. I love that stuff.

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.