David Hewlett Quotes

I have learnt to become patient as an actor.

My acting coach I've got here, Richard Lawson, he's been doing good, just telling me to calm down sometimes and just be me.

Any acting job that I ever got, I always treated it like I was a neophyte; I didn't know what I was doing, and I was going to work just as hard as I do on my stand-up.

To be honest, there are so many things I learned in acting school beyond the method; it was a safe place to practice. So acting school was about exercising that acting muscle and doing it every single day - and having people tell you that you're bad every single day! Which pushes you to work even harder.

It's been about ten years since I've worked with actors who knew their lines!

I found acting tough; it takes a lot out of you if you have no technique.

As an actor, I still don't really know exactly what I am doing most of the time.

So, I certainly subscribe to what Bette said about acting being very hard work.

Everyone brings their own particular skill set to the job, and acting training can work for a lot of actors, and it can't. I've seen a lot of really good actors go into acting schools and then come out a little bit corrupted.

I'm not going to get better as an actor working on bad stuff.

One was never taught how to begin at drama school. But all it required was one intake of breath.

All the things you can do to prepare for a role that free you, in the moment, are great. You have this muscle memory for things. You don't have to act it as much, once you've done it enough.

It's a funny thing. You sort of never figure it out with acting. You're always learning.

As an actor, you're trained to do the right thing, be politically correct, say your lines, say the right thing about the people you're working with.

It's hard enough to just be a good actor. When you're on set, there's everything going against you. There are walkie talkies going off, the camera is creaking and moving, there are boom mics, and you have to hit your mark and make sure you don't shadow the other person's face. It's a really technical process.

The best way to study to be an actor is to interact genuinely with the people around you and observe and listen.

People think memorizing lines is hard, when that's the last thing you worry about. You get that done, and then you've got to worry about the internal stuff, which is the challenging part.

I've had probably way too many acting classes, and you try to sort of shed - I think over a period of time, you'll shed what doesn't stick with you, and you'll hang onto those things that do.

When I was starting out, doing guest spots on TV, and even commercials, I would go in with a whole crazy wardrobe and some terrible accent. Obviously, I was doing too much. If you bring too much flavor to it, it's absurd. There's something to just being spontaneous.

Ninety percent of the preparation we do as actors is just jive. It doesn't do anything.

I took theatre and stuff in college, then I took a bunch of different acting classes here in L.A. Sometimes when I have a hard audition, I'll call my acting coach and he'll come help me. I actually get more nervous in acting class than I do at an actual audition. It's actually a really great way to get over your nerves.

I feel that one of the hardest things in acting is the way you need to switch your emotions.

What's beautiful about the actual acting class environment is that you can use it to push through everything: push your voice, push your inhibitions, push your fears, push your confidence, push your vulnerability, push your silences.

I think when you're acting, you usually don't have to know too much beyond how to pronounce the words you're saying.

As an actor, you're constantly looking to be pushed.