Heather Headley Quotes

I'm just always learning lines. I've learned to flag the really crucial scenes, and I start figuring them out and committing them to memory as soon as I get them.

That's what I like about acting. When you're preparing for a role, you do your research, and the bonus is you get to learn these skills. Now, it's on to whatever the next thing is I have to learn.

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.

I'm not the kind of actor who goes into exhaustive research for each role.

One of the great joys of being an actor is you get to go back to school.

You learn an incredible amount doing theatre, not just about to behave.

And that's one thing that helps me is I learn it blandly, vanilla, then I don't try to act it too soon because you start to act it, and you kind of go away from what the next sentence is, what the next paragraph is. So get it down so it kind of can - it's in there so you can then, as I call it, dance on top of it.

As an actor all we want to do is act and play people.

A different script calls for different things. It always takes me a long time to get to know the part, and know the logic behind the words. I have to be with the script for quite a long time before things start to fall into place, before they become part of the character.

Here's what I knew about doing a play: I knew it would make me a better actor.

I had to study acting to basically educate myself.

I'm really excited, because the character, Jules, is a really awesome character. I'm really excited to be playing her, and overall, I'm really excited to be getting back to my acting roots.

In theater, you're allowed to take your time and sit in a role for a month before you have to share it with anybody. In film and TV, you have to just kind of show up and be ready to do that, which, to me, is very strange and crazy.

I think as an actor you're always learning, you're always trying to experience more things.

I find performing very difficult. It's difficult to be a good actor. I get very nervous, even though it sounds disingenuous, because you could legitimately go, 'Well, why do it?'

It's funny because, if you're not an actor, people always tend to say, 'How do you memorize all those lines? Is that really hard?' I'm always like, 'That's just a small part of it. I have to seek my craft and my emotions' - you know, all this gross, actor-y stuff.

Sometimes you can fall into bad habits on film or rest on your laurels, and you can't do that in theater. I think it's such a useful tool as a person and as an actor to go back and forth between those two mediums.

As an actor, you strive to show versatility.

Actors are observers of human life, of human behavior.

That's one of the great things about being an actor. You get to learn all these things normal people don't get to learn.

I learn from Kevin Spacey and Tom Hardy, watching these guys work, the things they all do differently. Tom never stops exploring and discovering, take after take. His mind never turns off.

As an actor, you keep learning. There's no end to it.

There's a lot of pressure being an actor and taking on challenges that people don't expect of you.

I write in the booth and memorize in rehearsals.

I'm always studying actors and movies. You can never not do your homework.