Arthur Lowe Quotes

I realise that certain actors project their own image onto the screen - those who are the same on as they are off. But I've never had the necessary statistics to be able to do that sort of thing, and so, anyway, I always wanted to be a character actor.

As long as you have the acting chops and the desire to get inside a character, you can play anything.

That's what I love about acting, is playing different roles. I want to work for the character, and not make it work for me.

It's easier to see in someone else, another actor, how they kind of disappear and then this other persona appears. A great actor is a thing of mystery.

I don't know if I'm a method actor.

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.

As an actor, you can't just imitate someone. You have to get under her skin.

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.

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

Well, as an actor, at least from my standpoint, I can't not like who I'm playing.

As an actor, you can do what you want with your role. That's why they hire you; to take the role and make it real.

None of the characters I've played are really like me. That would be boring. That wouldn't be acting.

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.

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.

I don't bring my life into a character at all.

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

People often ask me, was it hard to play this person or that person? Well, no, not really. Acting is what I do. It's my job.

You can't generalise, of course, but there is a school of American acting where there is a kind of pride in the number of takes you can do.

I consider myself a character actor.

A really great actor, in a lucky performance, can transform himself or herself. I've seen actors do that. But often it's a mechanical transformation, which isn't as interesting, and you've got to be careful how you go about something like that, I think.

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.

With most British actors, it's amazing. I think they start with the character on the outside and work in.

Any good actor is a character actor.

In my experience, it's usually up to the actor how a character is portrayed.