John Hawkes Quotes

I'm an actor. Whether I'm on stage, in front of a camera or a microphone, what I do is the same - although with videogames it requires a lot of imagination.

I think when you take away all, like, the premieres and press stuff and all the special effects, then you just come down to the fact that it's all about acting, and I think that has been the best bit for me.

Acting is completely different from the standup world. You have these 12- or 14-hour days, but you have a great time doing it. It's like hanging out with your friends.

Acting is the ability to dream on cue.

I have theatre-training, I love doing theatre, I've done Broadway.

I don't like being away from theater that long. The muscles get atrophied if you don't exercise them.

Maybe I can't act, but I know the gimmicks. I studied acting all my life and know what's good for me.

I was trained as a dramatic actor. I'm really excited to do some more dramatic stuff.

I think that different actors go about their preparation differently, but when it comes to acting, I use my imagination.

I'm an actor, and I keep observing people and their reactions to figure out what they are thinking. There's only so much you can do on your own, so you have to keep learning. Art imitates life.

When I was doing 'All in the Family,' half the time, I was looking at where the cameras were, where were the other actors in the scene, what the audience was doing.

It was really fun being in Tara's trailer, working on my lines. Tara is such an amazing actress. She's so good at what she does. I learned a lot from watching her.

It doesn't matter if you're doing a studio movie or you're doing an independent movie. When you get to set and you're doing a scene, it's always going to be the same job. I really don't think about my career, in terms of planning it out and what this does for me.

I love doing emotional scenes. As I've had a perfect life, I don't really have much to pull from. But it's really fun and not that challenging. It's almost pretty easy. The hardest thing is to try and make people laugh. That's a really hard thing.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

I'm always looking, as an actor, for activities. I think it's far more interesting to watch what people do than what they say. You always want to watch behavior, because the dialogue as written by our illustrious leaders is great. Eminently playable.

Having done a lot of theater, I'm used to sustaining characters over long periods of time.

Everything you do on set is directly related to your imagination when you read the script for the first time.

I don't mind being identified as any character as long as I'm doing a good job as an actor. I have done all kinds of roles - from an editor, judge, police officer, murderer to a corrupt businessman.

I think all great actors - and I don't classify myself as one of them, incidentally - but I think all great actors listen well and I've learned that from a lot of the very good actors with whom I've worked - to really listen to what people say.

All actors do that. Should do that and do that. For the most part. I say all actors. I'm exaggerating, but you know who does and who doesn't. Vince is a wonderful young actor who knows his work and did a beautiful job on this film.

I've never got a part in the same way twice. I've never prepared the same way. I've never experienced the filming the process the same way.

Doing the soaps, every day it's constant training. Dealing with camera angles, the other people - it's great training.

Basically, the actor's job is to pay attention to the script.

As for acting, I took drama lessons when I was in high school.