Jean Cocteau Quotes

I get passionate about certain subjects, and then I'll write a whole play around it.

The actor's role in the community is quite unlike anyone else's. Businessmen, for example, don't take their clothes off or cry in front of strangers in the course of their work. Actors do.

The actor should not play a part. Like the Aeolian harps that used to be hung in the trees to be played only by the breeze, the actor should be an instrument played upon by the character he depicts.

My life is in dialogue with the plays that I write. The relationship I have with my plays is very, very intimate, and I dot my life through them.

Why should I write a play? I don't have to write a play, do I? But somehow, I think that's what I'm here for, so I'd better do it.

I like doing stuff that is sad or angry. It's a challenge, because you're doing a mix of scenes and you're making a person.

Playwriting is an oral art; it's not an art of a writer expecting to be read but a writer expecting to be heard.

That's the job of an actor. You get to be in all these strange new challenging situations.

The fundamental job of the actor is to tell about the human condition, to be a voice for the truest ideas and deepest emotions.

If I love the story, and if I really connect with my character, I'm willing to do it. I'm willing to try new characters, to be someone that I'm not like. I like trying new emotions and being new characters. That's the thing about acting: You can be so many things!

Even if an actor might not nail the moves in a way than a stunt person might, I wanted to bring the character of 'Hanna' into everything that she did.

I think visually... so, even when I'm writing a play, I'm envisioning it.

I did a brief stint with set design and stage design. And I tried playwriting, too.

I think actors are very obsessed about looking different and behaving differently, but all people need is just a different film. They don't want a different you; they want a different story.

In theatre, I loved doing '2nd May 1997' at the Bush. Jack Thorne is a brilliant writer, and it was really exciting and felt new and different for me.

There is something special about being an actor and able to bring somebody's visualisation - director, storywriter and script writer - into life. It is almost like creating a person.

I'm just trying to give the best human expression that I can to any particular genre, which could be comedy, could be drama, could be horror, could be thriller.

Timing is a big part of stunt work and fighting scenes. It's something you learn in WWE, especially when they are really character-driven fights.

I've had the opportunity to work as an actor and tell stories that transform.

As humans, we've all experienced some level of pain. Acting is just a matter of accessing and magnifying these emotions.

We are not brain surgeons. We are not curing cancer. We are not finding the next cure for Alzheimer's. We are simply and merely entertainment. We take on and wear the masks of characters. That's what we're paid to do.

Crying does not equal good acting.

As actors, we have to take characters, and we have to feel for them and ultimately become them, and share that on screen so that audience feels that.

All I have tried to do as an actor is push good story telling.

I think I was born to be a clown. I just haven't figured out how to bring that side of myself into the world of filmmaking. It's much more comfortable for me to cry on a film set than it is to tell a joke.