Carrie Preston Quotes

I think that when you first read material or you first read a script or story and know you might be playing a part, it's important not to see yourself because it should be a challenge enough that it doesn't come easy.

It's part of the actor's job to show up with a head full of steam, to have their own take on this. So that way, you're not relying on, 'OK, tell me how to do it.'

I never like to refer back to anything I've done when I'm working on a character, even if that character has the same occupation.

So many actors get caught up in their technique, and to be honest, I see it really getting in the way. I see them forcing things. I definitely do my best work when I'm free of that. But I think as an actor, I work really hard in preparing the roles.

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

I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That's the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein.

I got my training here in Chicago at the Goodman School Of Drama, and a lot of my personal work is usually internal work and stuff. Everything else that goes on is icing on the cake - your wardrobe, your makeup, whatever else you have to do.

Anytime I audition for something, it's always a question of whether or not the people I'm auditioning for understand I'm an improviser and I like to do that, and if they like that or if they just want someone who's going to do what's written.

I know a lot of actors who get a part and then they dissect it and they want to change it and they want to add stuff. I'm always amazed and so impressed by actors who do that.

Any part I do is a marriage of the words - what the playwright or producer or show runner's vision is - to how I would play it. It took me a while to get rid of 'Oh, they want it this way, so I'm going to do it how they want it.'

There's an impression that actors make a lot of choices. I just take what's there.

I love auditioning. Since 'The Notebook' and 'Wedding Crashers,' I don't have to audition anymore, and I miss it. You get to show your interpretation of the character. I get nervous when I don't audition. What if they hate what I want to do?

I'm one of those lazy actors; I like to take what the playwright wrote and work with that.

Honestly, I'm a shallow performer. I just go with the text and feel my way around it. There's not a whole lot of shaping.

A lot of actors, whatever movie you're working on, you make up a back story just for your own, to work off, even if the audience doesn't have it revealed to them. I think it's important that the audience makes up their own mind.

Every role sort of teaches you how to prepare for it.

The thrill of acting is the discovery part, so it all changes, but it has to change in a way that fits what is written. You can't just wander off and get interested in your own tangent.

That's kind of the fun part about acting. We do get the right to kind of get from A to Z any way we want, as long as we start at A and end at Z.

Acting is different from mental gymnastics. You try to discover as much about the character as you can, but a large area is mysterious.

The real work of an actor goes on inside, and I don't think it changes from director to director - I always go for broke! But I don't get a lot of direction, unfortunately.

The problem with acting is that there's really no control. You're at the behest of others.

I always hate it when I hear actors talking about the process of what they do, so I'll keep my thoughts to myself.

As an actor, I go with the flow.

Bryan Cranston's advice to actors, it's my favorite thing, and it changed my life. He said: Don't go into an audition to get the job, go to share your work. That was so liberating. You read it, interpret it, embody it the way you want to play that person and embody them with your whole heart and soul for those 20 minutes.

I think it's important as an actor to stay really ignorant.