Olivia Williams Quotes

My relationship with every film is more or less the same, but the experience is the difference. It comes with the people I am working with, the character I play.

Wayne was coming out of a session as Mickey for 'Totally Minnie.' We met in the hallway. We just blended really well.

It's fun to play the character and then watch him later.

On 'Workaholics,' I feel like I'm just hanging out with my buddies being filmed, but on 'Mindy,' I'm around professional funny people who act. Guys like Chris Messina, who are the real deal. I watch what they do and put my own spin on it.

When you're doing a play that's fully produced, you have the benefit of rehearsing for four or five weeks, so you really get to live in the skin of the character for much longer than when you first start doing a character on TV.

For me and for I'm sure any actor, each role is a different challenge to prepare for in a different way.

I feel very privileged to have worked with a lot of outstanding actors: Alun Armstrong, Peter Mullan, Matt Smith and Andrew Garfield.

It's a hard thing to do, to be given a script, and know that you've got to turn up on the first day of the shoot - generally without having had any rehearsal - and present a character. It's really baffling; it's incredibly hard to know how to begin, to approach it, other than just thinking about it.

I have a hard time watching films and not thinking how I would play any part, whether it's a man or a woman.

As an actor, you're always looking for, what do I get to do? It's not just what do I say, but what do I do, too.

I'm more verbal and not as private as I was as a kid. I still do a form of sense memory. It honestly depends on the job. It depends on the other people you're working with, how the other actor works.

I like to create characters that are larger than life. But it's funny because I do a lot of bad guys, and it's because, being European, I usually get cast as bad guys. It's just how it is.

Initially, it took me time to realise that I am sharing screen space with Irrfan Khan. But when I started working with him, a lot of times I would end up laughing in a scene.

I really loved making 'Love, Nina.' I was in every scene, which was amazing. Bloody hell, what a job!

I'm not a critic. I'm an actor. I see the role I get given on the page. I try to bring it to life as best as I can.

I've done so many other projects where you're in a room with a reader and you're acting your lines out: 'We have to get out of here! Any minute the building will explode!' And then the reader says: "Yes...we have to get... out of here." So it's not easy to be in the moment in that kind of situation. Reading with the entire cast in the room for The Clone Wars makes the experience much more organic and I love that.

I did play a dentist in Waiting for Guffman. I wrote the speech at the conference. In the original script, when it got to that scene, it was, 'Thank you very much. Good night.' Literally. I just thought, 'He keeps talking about this speech. The keynote address is the big thing in his life and this is too important to say, "Thank you. Good night." I think we have to see and hear him doing what he does.' So I got together with my dentist and we worked through a few things.

I love rehearsals and I love creating a character, sticking with it until you have something to tell. It's always different though. Sometimes a director will tell you from day one what they want. Then you throw in your idea.

What I love in working on film is just working with actors. It's one thing to write scenes alone over a keyboard and to imagine the actions and reactions in your head, but it's a completely other thing to hear actors speaking your words, to see their bodies bringing the fullness of emotion, need, desire and pain to life right in front of you. It's amazing.

I certainly don' think I could've played the character [Idi Amin] the same way without being in Uganda. I loved working in Uganda.

For me, obviously anything that reduces the amount of acting required and makes the process more of an experience, rather than having to synthesize, is incredibly helpful. There were definitely some hardships and some challenges, but eventually all of those hardships and challenges had a positive effect on the work.

I like to be cast well and then I like to be left alone. And good directors, that's generally what they do when they hire you because you have something that's useful to the part, and then they leave you alone. The times that I've run into trouble is when, very rare actually, but you get hired and then there's some sort of makeover involved.

Doing a film, or being sent scripts to look at a certain character, it's very odd for me. I tend to take it very personally.

My own personal process with movies is to develop the characters with the actors and, when I've done that properly, you can't imagine anyone else, but that actor, playing that part.

It was really fun and intimate in a way. Working with George Miller is exquisite. Gloria is different from anything I've ever played before. The first time I saw the characters in the studio I remember thinking that Mumble looked just like Elijah, with such a cute and endearing face. I don't think Gloria looks that much like me.