Emma Roberts Quotes

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 have always wanted to do a book about actors because I think that the death of a character is a tremendously emotional experience.

I was always in love with film and becoming a character and playing something else, and nobody ever told me no, so I just followed it, and here I am, having a ton of fun.

So, to prepare for the role, I had to take music lessons, talk to wives who had husbands overseas, and carefully study the reactions and mannerisms of a friend who was expecting.

That's where everything starts, as an actor: you've gotta have great writing and great character development, and then you have really great materials to work from.

It's so fun to play a character that has so many layers that people won't even know, until the next season.

A book is maybe about 350 pages, and the prose allows for readers to get a glimpse into the internal lives of the characters. A screenplay is 120 pages, and it's all dialogue and action. The pacing of films is different, the structure is often different, and the internal lives of the characters must come across through the acting. Movies are just a different experience than reading - so it just depends on what an individual prefers.

It's the same kind of preparation you do for something like this you do for anything. It doesn't matter if it's a drama or a comedy, the need to get the emotion and the character arc across is way harder in something like this so was more of a preparation.

I think a lot of that is what helped me develop my character. I wouldn't say it was Method, but it was definitely a little more in depth than I've done before in terms of acting. With the other kids, we all were such good friends by the time we started shooting. Because of that, it allowed us to trust each other more to push the dynamics of the relationship to places which you might not be able to had you not trusted that person.

I got Michael Caine's book, Acting In Film, and I read it on the plane, desperately trying to glean information from him about how to adapt my craft, which was actually very helpful.

The way I prepare is through script analysts and back story. I create back story for a character based on script analysts, filling in as many details as possible. I also do a lot of research.

I won't even think about acting in a role where I didn't do a back story for a character.

That's one of my little expressions. I never really studied acting so I kind of kiddingly talk about "building your circle" and "mooding up," because I really didn't learn any technique.

I think an actor can actually gather moments, memories and emotions for his next character. So, it's a constant work.

The hardest thing for me to do, and the best thing I've done and learned as an actor is to sacrifice being funny in certain circumstances in order to do something that makes sense for the story or the character, or emotionally.

All you really have when you're acting is the confidence and your ability to manage and tell a story by creating a character.

I see pictures in my mind and become the character in the song as I'm writing. It's kind of method songwriting, where you're the actor in the song.

You're always learning as an actor... anything you do is a learning experience. It's the same whether you're doing film or TV, you have to do the part to the best of your ability, no matter how big or small the role. It's as simple as that, really. But every bit of work you do is a learning experience - which is the same, I guess, for people in whatever job they do. But with acting, it's also fun to be able to explore different characters and emotions.

As you're learning your lines and the character you're playing, you're going to make mistakes but I learned more about Shug Avery. I learned my lines, but everything had to be done quickly.

Usually when you're playing a character, you think a lot about their backstory.

That's the thing about prep, is that it's a joy to have it there and you can spend all this time prepping, but ultimately you have to look at your script and turn up on the day. It's embedded in there somewhere but you have to forget it all and play the scene because we are storytelling.

As an actor, anything that you have to help get you into character is helpful.

I actually like character work, so for me, generally speaking, I enjoy it. It's a little bit more of a comfortable suit you put back on. You can explore it and have fun with it and push the limits of it.

The predominant difference between television and film is the pace to which you work, but the development of the character or the process for playing the character isn't necessarily different.

Yeah, we've become really good friends. Our characters start dating in the book, and um, yeah, I think we - and we made up little back stories to our characters and little outtakes that we'd bring up to Edgar as a joke, and you know, kind of see different sides of stuff. So yeah, we have a really good time.