Johnny Vegas Quotes

I want things to be characters and not me. Why would I want to play me?

While it's really hard to do, at the same time, I'm escaping my body, which I really want to do. I'm living someone else's life. I get very intensely into the story, into the interviews and the research. I'm experiencing things along with my subjects. I have a freedom I don't have in my physical life.

I became acutely aware of how important it is to separate the difference between who you are and who the character you're playing is.

A rap dude has his rap persona, his hyper version of himself. Do you know Method Man's real name? Or Elton John, Marylin Monroe? You make up this character. That's kind of what we have done with Die Antwoord, playing with characters.

You can't identify 100% with your character.

As a consumer of entertainment, as a director, I'm always interested in questions of identity and who someone is and how they're perceived and who they are versus who they thought they'd be.

I find sometimes it's easy to be myself, sometimes I find it's better to be somebody else.

I'm trying to eliminate every vestige of my own personality, style, approach and get into somebody else's skin. Sometimes I feel I've accomplished it. But when I don't, I'm nobody at all, having left myself at home.

I like to get far away from myself when I'm acting.

I play a character every day of my life, and I don't want to play a character as myself. They can judge me as an actress, not as a person. I'm not a spokeswoman for Anna.

I think Zippy is part of me, but I'm not Zippy.

As an actor, you're always playing different people, so you yourself are always kind of going through an identity crisis.

It's a lot of fun to play someone you don't normally think of yourself as.

Like, that was weird in 'Hamlet 2,' because I played myself there, fully myself, but then I realized, 'Oh, I'm not playing myself. I'm some weird version of myself.' So as an actress, you're always playing something, I don't even know who I am, how could I become me? I don't know what that is.

I never wanted to be Marilyn - it just happened. Marilyn's like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.

I feel more comfortable when I'm somebody else, I think. When I'm taking a picture as myself, the whole idea of taking a headshot, to me, feels very false.

In all my years as an actor, I had never been me - I had always hidden behind my glasses, mustaches and funny voices.

I think I always resented the fact that people thought I was trying to entertain them with my multifaceted, chameleonlike character changes. Although I liked doing that, I wasn't out to fool people and say 'Guess which one is me.'

At least when you're acting you can be someone. In front of the camera you have to be yourself. And who am I?

When I'm a director, I look at myself the actor as a completely different person. It's somebody else up there, an actor playing a role. I keep myself out of it.

The most important basis of any novel is wanting to be someone else, and this means creating a character.

I even found it difficult to watch myself playing on TV because I couldn't identify with the person on the screen. I couldn't get to grips with it. It was as if it was all happening to someone else.

I don't know. You know, when I'm not acting, I'm not an actor. I'm just a person. That's how I go through life. I'd rather not - you know, like a lot of actors, you know, they spend their whole 24 hours a day being an actor.

As you mature and gain a semblance of wisdom and a sense of what life is all about... this is by no means true of everyone, but a lot of actors like to escape themselves. Inhabiting another person's persona is often a good way of escaping yourself.

The woman who made those movies, that's not me. She's someone else.