Jennifer Westfeldt Quotes

I had to focus and create a character in Bagger Vance, not just do my 'Will Smith' thing and get paid.

An actor is somebody who communicates someone else's words and emotions to an audience. It's not me. It's what writers want me to be.

Of course you can find something exciting and dynamic in any character you want to portray.

I have just gained a deeper and deeper respect for acting and the whole art of it because you're really trying to live a life and to do the best justification for it.

Don't think for a moment that I'm really like any of the characters I've played. I'm not. That's why it's called 'acting'.

Many times, when a director reads a script and wants somebody who says 'Far out', then they let me do what I want with it and that's usually more interesting for an actor.

Actors act... Their job is to become this character. And I have, in fact, seen Sam Heughan become Jamie and Caitriona Balfe become Claire right before my eyes. It was an astonishing transformation.

I don't see a difference between the idea of what an actor does and what someone supposes a character actor is, really.

I don't think about how many times how many heroines have said 'I love you' to how many heroes on screen and that I am also doing the same. It is how differently I can say the same thing in my own style or how I can bring a new element into it.

I feel it's very important for an actor to believe in the character that he/she is playing and do full justice to it in order to convince others that you are the character you are portraying.

Actors are magical people. They can take words you wrote and say them in a way that, although you thought the line was good when you wrote it, it's fantastic when it comes out of their mouth.

I love acting and really taking on another person, another life.

I love acting, and ultimately all my characters are very different, and each character I love in a different way.

I'm always amazed when any actor can decipher my direction.

The worst acting is about imitation.

Some actors get by with behaving, not acting. You've got to sell the effect. I act more in the 'Nightmare' movies because it's not like me. I'm acting, not reacting.

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

I always tend to see, right after reading the script, the character and how I want to play it. I guess that's sort of most of the work, preparing for the role, but almost the creation of the character seems to go on as I read through the script.

I think it's incumbent on actresses to bring something else to the part which isn't in the script.

As an actor, it's more interesting to play a nerd than anything else. It's a lot more fun - you don't worry about 'what's my hair like?' in the morning or 'which is my great angle?'

I find it easier to play someone who is so far from me because you create someone - you build this person based on the story and the script, with the director.

That's what acting is. You're pretending to be someone else.

I am a professional actor, and I don't go about moralizing about what the character does. Otherwise, seriously, why be an actor? You're not making some kind of social statement. That's not what actors do.

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

Everything, I think, about acting is based on imagination.