Steve Buscemi Quotes

In terms of how I work with actors, having worked so heavily on the script I have a very clear idea of the characters; they are reasonably well illustrated in the script. If you cast it right, to a great degree you can hand it over to the actor and I just make suggestions. I'm not the kind of director who needs or wants to get into too much finessing. Ideally, when you hit the set, you have this conversation, like, 'eh, what did you think?' 'I don't know, what did you think?' 'Why don't we just try it again, make a few physical changes.'

I got a call from a mutual friend of ours, Charles King, who's also the executive producer. [Steven Caple Jr and I] had a conversation about it. I read it. We kind of finished each other's sentences when it came to the nuances and personality flaws that the character had, and some stereotypes and things we were trying to stay away from. We agreed on that as well. He just kind of allowed me to run rampant with the ideas. As we paced ourselves through, we developed Turquoise.

When you work on a character, you form in your mind an image of what he ought to look like. Then you go and find one who resembles him.

It's rare that I've read a script where I'm like, "Oh, my god, it's hilarious!" All you want is a good skeleton and good characters. Then, you can go, "Okay, I can bring a lot to this. I can improvise and I can create something out of this."

If you know what it is before you even start, it's not as interesting. Central to being an actor is pretending, and the adventure of it all. That's why you become a junkie for different kinds of situations. I try to attach myself to people who really inspire me, and directors who are really passionate. That way, I can give myself more fully and trust the impulse behind why the film is being made, and I can be a little more irresponsible in finding out what the character is. I have to worry less about what the character means if I trust the director.

Improv is more than just spitting out a bunch of funny stuff that's unrelated to the material. You have to stay in character, you have to react and respond as the character you're trying to play. You have to service the story, and I think improv training has helped with my listening, responding, and my audition technique. It's sounds so silly, but it's true. Because not only do you improvise during the audition, but once you get the part, they'll say, "Throw away everything. Just improv this scene. Do whatever you want." Someone could panic if they're not used to doing something like that.

My own personal process with movies is to develop the characters with the actors and, when I've done that properly, you can't imagine anyone else, but that actor, playing that part.

When you're playing a character, you don't really want to have an opinion about where you're going to end up. Otherwise, you can't really stay in the moment and in your character.

When I work, I really try to get absorbed in the character. Unless I want to do something playful with the camera, I'm not too worried about where the camera is or positions.

It was a lot of fun to play a character [in Swiss Army Man] with no inhibitions, and with no knowledge of the world, and who comes into the world kind of like a blank slate. It means there's no template or blueprint for how you need to play certain scenes.

Part of being an actor is being able to contribute to a character's rhythms. If there's room to explore, you find a happy medium. We almost always get it as written, and then, we throw some improvs in or some alternatives.

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 always say that, like a scientist or anyone, you always want to be the problem-solver. You feel like, if you solve the greatest mystery or the greatest problem, then that makes you brilliant. It's the same thing with an actress. You want to be able to really tackle a character and make it a fully-dimensional human being who is complicated, funny and all the things that a person could be.

Being an actor opened doors for me to explore my emotions as different people and characters, and expand my own inner soul.

My job has always been to not only make my character look like a badass but to also make the actor I am fighting opposite to be the character they need to be too.

I've always wanted to be an actor that explores different genres and different characters.

I play a lot of characters where I don't even speak in my own voice. I learned about focus and I learned to trust that things can work when they're not heightened and that it's interesting when things are pared down.

I consider myself a character actress, and that's working out. I'm getting chances to do things. I like the process - I don't want to pretend I'm something other than what I am.

If I can look at each character that I am given and create them in a different way from the last role, I'm happy.

The biggest thing that comes out of improv that gets built on is just character traits. You know, for me the singing was born out of improv.

I got good at trying to throw a voice on a character from the very beginning as opposed to like reading it and sitting with it and mulling over it and stuff like that just try to read what it is and then try to put a funny voice to it like as soon as possible and stuff like that. Once you get laughs with your voice then you can start thinking about, you know the physical characteristics and how they might walk or if they stick out their buck teeth or if they wear an afro and stuff like that. I think like finding the voice of the character helps to like build the wardrobe and everything else.

My agent told me they were casting for the voice of Gollum. I hadnt read The Lord of the Rings, but I read the script and realized what an amazing role it was. I developed a voice for the audition tape, then met Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh at the auditions and fell in love with them both.

I really want to try to explore the characters from angles you've never seen and keep them classic and iconic.

There should always be that leeway because if you think of your character as sort of absolutely fixed, then you just try and find actors to come and do exactly that thing, then you're not gonna be working with that actor's own set of internal impulses and who they are, so the best work is always a coming together of the actor and the character.

When you start and you're taking the character seriously, it's going to lead down a variety of paths.