Gayle Forman Quotes

I choose roles that are not me.

We are not what we seem. We are more than what we seem. The actor knows that. And because the actor knows that hidden inside himself there's a wizard and a king, he also knows that when he's playing himself in his daily life, he's playing a part, he's performing, just as he's performing when he plays a part on stage.

Sometimes you become a character, and sometimes the character becomes you.

Aristotle said time is a measure of change, and this movie is about changing in time, through time, while remaining the same person. That's a philosophical paradox and a moral dilemma. But 'Casablanca' says it's possible. You can have both. That's what it means. And that's my wish for you: that you would have both.

I stopped acting Romeo and just became Romeo.

You're born a certain way, but you don't gotta die like that.

One does what one is; one becomes what one does.

One wants to be able to experience being other people, remaking a reality, remaking a life, remaking a certain world.

There are so many people we could become, and we leave such a trail of bodies through our teens and twenties that it's hard to tell which one is us. How many versions do we abandon over the years?

I thought I was an actor playing a wizard. But really, I was a wizard playing an actor.

We don't know who we are until we see what we can do.

Or maybe a person is just made up of a lot of peopleMaybe we’re accumulating these new selves all the time. Hauling them in as we make choices, good and bad, as we screw up, step up, lose our minds, find our minds, fall apart, fall in love, as we grieve, grow, retreat from the world, dive into the world, as we make things, as we break things.

Like an actor who transforms into the character that they're playing, you can transform into yourself.

Let's all pretend to be someone else, and then perhaps we'll find out who we are.

I did not think I had what it took to be an actor, because most of the actors that I encountered were people who were very narcissistic and I thought since I lacked narcissism to become an actor because that's what it took. It was more of a social experiment for me to walk in the shoes of other people that I found interesting.

And that point is, it doesn't matter how long you've known somebody. People change. Or you don't really know them as well as you thought you did in the first place.

I’ve always thought you are what you are and you shouldn’t pretend to be anyone else. But Oliver used to correct me and explain that you are whoever it is you’re pretending to be.

I think the greatest thing about being an actor is that you can become other people. ... You have the opportunity to explore ... alternative ways of living for a brief time.

I wouldn't be myself if I weren't always trying to be someone else. I only have so much time on this earth and I want to be as many people as possible.

Every character, no matter who you play, at times is pretending to be somebody else. People have a public face and a private face.

People don't recognize me from gig to gig. They have no idea. But, that's really what I strive to do. I strive to stip myself down completely and build another human and become them.

With every character, you alter, you can’t be attached to your own identity.

We lose ourselves in what we read, only to return to ourselves, transformed and part of a more expansive world.

I usually congratulate people when they tell me, "I don't know who I am anymore".

What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?