Sally Hawkins Quotes

I think as an actor you want to keep being challenged.

I was worried for a while that it was some sort of reflection of me that all I seemed to be getting were these characters that were a tad bit loony. But I love it. Those are the most fun characters to play!

One of the great things about acting is you can do things that in real life would get you in trouble. I think that's something I figured out pretty early on.

Your primary tools, as an actor, are observation and imagination. You can pretty much get everything you need from that, and you do. It brings back that element of pretend.

I think the buzz of acting is playing people different to you, and for me, that means traversing all genres.

The whole thing about acting, the draw for me, is the opportunity to do things you don't get to do in real life.

The thing about being an actor is that as we get older, there are more and more characters to explore and, in general, they get more complicated, so you get to bring all your crazy life experience to the table.

I think acting can be very frustrating, and there's no experience that doesn't make you a better actor.

The reason I feel like I act is because you get to live a million different lives in one. I don't have to go about my life, just being easy-going New Zealander Rose. Sometimes I can inhabit a feisty, vicious character. Sometimes I can inhabit a painfully shy British girl, or whatever it might be.

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.

In acting, you draw so much on your private life.

But most of what I've learned about acting - and a lot of what I've learned about life in the past seven years - was taught to me by Robert Altman.

My favorite thing about acting is that I can play all kinds of different people. Frankly, I don't consider myself a very interesting person, so the characters I play are usually much more fun.

Actors generally get to do things you probably shouldn't do in real life - well, at least as much as one might like to or be tempted to. Though I suppose a lot of actors just go ahead and do it, don't they?

Acting-wise, I've had all these experiences. Yet when I look at certain people whose careers I admire, they've gotten to play so many different characters.

There are lots of things to do. Lots of movies to catch. Lots of places to visit... I try to bring in every real life experience into my acting.

A really fun part of getting to be an actor is exploring those parts of yourself that you wouldn't otherwise explore.

As an actor, it's really exciting and challenging to play a character which is much older than your actual age.

One of the things I love about acting is that there is always scope for growth.

The more you have in your toolbox, if you can visualize or have a moment to provide you a visual, as an actor, that's paramount.

I get to play some zany, multilayered, very complex individuals.

I think I've spent so much time playing characters that are so far away from me and learning how to technically build and how to technically put something on top of you.

Like any other actor, I draw on life experience.

My approach as an actor has always been the same, in that the greatest gift that you're ever going to have is your imagination because you're not going to have all life experiences. So you draw on things that are sort of close to it but you spend your time expanding on it or drawing something specific on whatever your situation is.