James Avery Quotes

I would absolutely recommend for actors to start in the theater because it establishes a foundation in your craft that you can build off of.

There is probably some great acting that goes on in movies from people who have never been on a stage, but if you are in for the long haul, you'd be missing an enormous part of what being an actor is if you're not part of theater.

The one thing for an actor that is complete death is if you're bored, because that boredom will show in your work.

I've grown tremendously as an actor by being there. It is comic writing the likes of which I don't know that I'll ever see again and it's been a great, great experience.

I'm an actor. I play roles in films and theaters. I don't act out, and I don't play people.

As an actor just learning the craft, you literally do a scene with Jimmy Gandolfini, and you walk away a better actor.

I did a theater program the summer of my junior year, and that's when I really fell in love with the craft of acting. It became more about the craft and less about being a working actor.

I think an actor without life experiences is empty.

As an actor, you can do what you want with your role. That's why they hire you; to take the role and make it real.

Film acting is really the trick of doing moments. You rarely do a take that lasts more than 20 seconds. You really earn your spurs acting onstage. I needed to do that for myself. I would hate to say at the end of everything that I never did a stage play.

Shakespeare teaches you how to act. You come out of this process as a better actor. It's just the nature of the words he writes.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

An actor matures with experiences, and the more the emotions he/she has been through, the greater the intensity of performances.

Everyone brings their own particular skill set to the job, and acting training can work for a lot of actors, and it can't. I've seen a lot of really good actors go into acting schools and then come out a little bit corrupted.

If you catch me saying 'I am a serious actor', I beg you to slap me.

The difference between working with actors that have put their time in the theater and just straight film and television actors is that you trust theater actors a lot more. You know that they're seriously more trained than anyone else because theater is the best place to grow as an actor.

Juilliard definitely emphasizes the theater. They don't train - at all really - for film acting. It's mostly process-oriented, pretty much for the stage.

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

I think any classical training in the theatre is of enormous value.

I think sometimes soap acting gets an unfair label for being bad and over the top. The lessons I learned there were so valuable. Seeing yourself every day on television, you learned what worked and didn't work, what was bad acting and what wasn't. Memorizing scripts became second nature.

My first acting lessons were Shakespeare. The first time I ever started working with a coach was doing scenes from 'Measure for Measure,' which were tough dramatic scenes. And then 'Taming of the Shrew,' which required comedic timing. And that's the kind of stuff I love.

There was only one elective at my college for acting, but thank God for that elective because we had a great teacher who introduced me to the Meisner technique for acting. Once I read that book, I said, 'Wow, if I could do that and have that honest moment on stage, that would be amazing.'

I think it is very important to be a method actor.

There's something about actors - not stars, but actors - if they have the character, and someone is pushing and shoving them to be the best they can be, they enjoy that.

I was not what you'd call a first-class actor, but I did all right.