Sean Hayes Quotes

If someone plays a brooding actor in a film, people think they're brooding all the time.

An actor's job is to embrace emotions and situations that in real life we spend all of our time running away from.

People tell me that my appearance in real life is better than on-screen. Perhaps people think I am exactly like the characters I play on TV.

I love the idea that somebody is going to compare me to my character or think that I am like my character when they see me. I feel like that is a role that I am willing to fulfill.

There are elements of me in the roles I've played in the past. But people forget that Mary Poppins was just a role, too.

I think younger fans can't quite grasp that's what you do as an actor. They're like, 'It doesn't make sense. How can he talk like this when he talks like that on the show!' It's really cute, actually.

Everyone thinks I am exactly like the characters I play.

I did have a knack for playing weirdos. There's still sort of this perception of me out there as being this crazy guy.

I don't really live my life in the media spotlight. People don't know that much really about me or what I think.

One of the things I find about acting is that the less the audience knows about the actor, the more they're able to believe in him in the role.

The most fun you can possibly have as an actor is to walk that line between what's real and what's interesting.

Being an actor means asking people to look at you. I guess I accept that. But it's a profession in which the job is to show another world and other people. You may access it through bits of yourself, and your imagination and experience, but actually, in the end, you're not playing yourself.

Once you don't smile on film, they say, 'Let's have that bloke who doesn't smile.'

If you can sell that you're the King of Scotland, or Henry V on a tiny stage in a studio theater somewhere, then you can probably sell that you're a starship captain or a time traveler.

I think I'm a part of all the characters I play, definitely at different times in my life. In real life, I'm kind of a tomboy. I like to read a lot I like watching T.V. I don't think I'm as interesting as my characters, but I like doing what I do.

There are so many examples of talented actors working today, no matter how they live their private lives. I'm lucky that people believe me when I'm in character.

You know, the truth is that us actors would all like to believe we re-invent the wheel, every time we play a character. But, we're human beings and our instruments are not violins, they are our bodies and our consciousness and our collective life experience.

It's hard to actually take details from your personal life and apply them a scene because, as much as you can identify with a feeling, you just get muddled. As soon as you start bringing your own stuff in, it's like, 'No, that's not right.' You're playing a different person. You can relate, but you have to leave that stuff at the door.

I really enjoyed playing Freddie Cork. People are always scared to approach me because of the character I played in 'Brotherhood.' The writing was very smart.

That's the joy of getting to be an actor - getting to play all kinds of different roles and showing so many different sides of yourself.

What the actor is in private life, he is to a large extent on the stage, because he cannot conceal himself and his true personality from his audience.

I've always felt that almost every part I've played has been a character part. I mean, I look at it that way. I can't help how I look or how I seem to people.

The interesting thing is, when you play a real-life character or someone based in a book, you always come up against people's preconceptions of what they have in their heads.

Well, with each character that I play in my life as an actor, I try to figure out how to find the challenge.

I still have a reputation as an eccentric. But the fact is that audiences probably mix up my roles with me as a person.