Cate Blanchett Quotes

When I research a role it does get a little crazy and maybe even a little stupid.

When you get to work with people like Ian McKellen or directors like Peter Jackson, you sit and watch.

You can say something that can really help and actor and you can say something that can really get in the way of an actor's performance, kind of cut them off from their instincts and really get into their heads. And every actor's different. Every actor requires something different. Being an actor, for me, was the greatest training to be a writer and director.

As an actor, you're used to putting on characters, taking them off, becoming someone else, doing your research, and working on that.

When working on and writing a film, I'm often more of a sponge than other times, aware of what's going on around me.

As actors we're always trying to use our creative imagination.

I'm not an actor who approaches films doing a lot of research. I do zero research, unless it's a film where I'm playing a mock version of someone who already existed. Then, you've got to do a lot of research.

Working with talented people and challenging myself as an actor [excites me].

One of the joys of being an actor is that you're always learning new things. And I've been doing this since I was 19, so there's been a lot of new things I have learned for each part. I always assume that I can do it.

I love to kind of people watch; that's part of what I do as an actor and creative person and sort of step back and watch others.

I'm not a very methodologically pure actor. Almost every time that I start, I feel completely at sea. Always at the beginning I feel like a fraud, really, because I'm never sure how to get started.

Part of the fun of acting is the research, finding out about other people.

We actors are superstitious creatures. We do all the homework, and we put all of the components together, but there's always one key aspect that we're not in charge of, really, and that's magic. You are always on the lookout for where and how that magic is going to ignite.

I think people who are regarded as better actors must have better instincts because, at the end of the day, once they say 'action,' it's you who has to do it right. You can do all the research and preparation or none at all, but it's your instincts that tell you, 'No, I'll do it like this.'

When I'm working, I don't wake up and say, 'OK, time to go be intense.' I just look at whatever scenes we're working on that day and break them down - just real intense everyday work.

Whenever I am acting, it's everything, you know. If I'm researching a role, I'm completely consumed in that and, between action and cut, I live in this suspended time.

I'm really not livable with when I'm rehearsing because I'm living the character.

Actors are investigators.

As much as I know people love the method and what you can draw out of yourself, a lot of acting is very imaginative.

Inspiration can come from anywhere. But I do love actors. I wish I could drop a bunch of names, but there are just too many.

You can always keep learning with acting, because the school is life and yourself and your friends and your relationships. I'm fascinated by it! It's infinito!

To write it, it took three months; to conceive it three minutes; to collect the data in it all my life.

That's how I make work. Along the way, I take notes, I read about history and popular culture. Sometimes I act out things in the studio. I go back to my mother's hair salon so I can hear three voices going all at once. I pull inspiration from everything.

So, the combination of looking at lots of different people and how they react to each other and how they relate to each other and waiting for that inspiration is the thing that allows me to keep writing.

I don't prepare for my roles. I don't watch movies to get inspired. I don't dig deep. I'll never be that type of actor, and I doubt that I ever will be.