John Carroll Lynch Quotes

Acting is very physical, even when it doesn't appear to be. It's about the arc of your body's language through a film.

I'm a very physical actor; everything I do is pretty much body-oriented. I sometimes am able to deliver information just with a look; my face does two or three different things, and it says it all.

I watched season four of 'The Wire.' They have subtle performances that they do through their eyes. You could watch season four with the audio off and still understand what's happening through their eyes.

I use my hands a lot while acting.

Really good acting is not about dialogue. It's really just about small moments that really make the whole entire scene and the intention completely different than even maybe what the characters are saying. Two characters could be saying, "I hate you, and I don't want to be with you anymore!" But yet somehow, their toes are just inching more, you know, closer to each other. So a really big thing about acting is really just with your body.

Acting coaches in Hollywood were always telling me to use my hands and body more. But that was never me. I just breathe and sometimes it doesn't look as if I'm doing that.

There's always so much more that can be conveyed on screen visually in the expressions of people's faces, in their bodies, in their body language. And also with sound design, with music.

There are times when I consciously give the character something physical - a walk, the way he sits, how he talks, or his lack of physicality, which is like a physicality.

There is this miraculous thing I heard Hugh Grant talking about - the thing about screen acting is that you can read people's thoughts. You are trying to register something inside and usually the eyes in cinema are where you will register that.

I like to use my hands. When I was in theatre in college, that was one of my biggest notes: 'You use your hands too much.'

Modeling is really silent acting.

As an actor, you have many tools - your body, your voice, your emotions, mentally. In film, you have your eyes because they communicate your thought process. In fact, generally in film, what you don't say is more important than what you say. That's not so much the case for stage.

Body language is essential for an actress, even if you don't use your body in an athletic way. Just to be free, to use it like your voice. A body can be small and have incredible violence. A body talks.

Some of the best actors in the world are very exterior actors, Anthony Hopkins being one of them. He knows exactly how to turn his face to get a certain expression. He knows exactly what to do with eyes, and with his voice. It's very exterior.

Good actors, you always know what they're thinking. That's why they're good actors.

I found out was, by the rhythm of my chewing, how I chewed fast, slow or what have you, I could tell the audience what my character was thinking and feeling.

An actor's body should be full of emotions, whether it is happiness or sorrow, pain or joy, enraged or elated.

I don't need dialogue to convey emotion or thoughts to my audience.

The best way to show an emotion is not through a character's words, but their smallest expressions - to take what an actor would visually do and try putting that down on the page for the reader to 'see.'

Emotions often must be portrayed from an inner feeling, of course, but I had a double advantage because I was learning to direct my as-yet expressionless feelings as well as gaining an ability to express emotion by a very conscious manipulation of my muscles.

I think there's something to be said for being physical in acting.

It made me alive to the fact that the most important thing sometimes is what isn't said - to prepare for moments of revelation that can be read entirely on actors' faces without dialogue.

I really think that effective acting has to do literally with the movement of molecules.

The eyes are the windows of your soul, and when you're acting, they're one of your most important instruments. Especially for close-ups!

When you act, your whole body is the instrument.