Ben Whishaw Quotes

It's always better to shock people and change people's expectations than to give them exactly what they think you can do. It's not unexpected for me to be in a comedy film anymore; I'm no longer the underdog in that world. Not that I'm great or good at it or anything, it's just that I've done a bunch of them, so you're not shocked.

Surprise is a huge element in acting.

When you can surprise yourself, you're truly acting.

As an actor, you should always keep your trump card hidden from your audience. I want the audience to keep expecting more and more from me. I want to do 'different' work - good and memorable roles - so that audience appreciate me more. That's why I love to surprise my audience with something they never expect me to do.

[On Lisa Kudrow:] She's like the best kind of jazz there is. You don't know what note she's going to hit and it's always a surprise.

I've always believed acting is an improvisational art form, even when not a single line is changed. I mean, the behavior should always be improvised. My favorite moments in any performance are when I'm just along for the ride; when I'm surprising myself. I know when I'm done and I think to myself, 'Gee, I didn't see that coming,' I've done well.

When I do a take, I very often try things that I haven't planned to try to see if I can pull it off.

From the moment you say 'action,' this is the fun part - things should happen that surprise you, excite you, scare you, turn you on, make you laugh. If things aren't surprising you, when you say 'cut,' whisper things to the actors that will make them do things that do surprise you.

I get letters from people saying one of the things they like best about what I've done since 'Bewitched' is that they never know what I'm going to do next.

My idea is just to do something different each time; the next thing I do has to be completely different to the thing I've done before - that's what I try and do, because you know, I'm an actor, not a film star.

The good thing about acting is that it always keeps you on your toes... It's not like any other job where you can go in and do the same thing as yesterday.

I like not knowing what's around the corner. It's always been that way, and maybe that's one of the reasons why I'm an actor.

I ask all my actors to do two things: I ask them to fail for me, and I ask them to surprise me.

A magic show and a concert are very similar in the way I like keeping things a mystery and not doing them the same way every time. The listener and the audience never know what's going to happen next.

You can't really plan with acting!

I think the best actors do both. I think they fulfill what you want them to do, in terms of the vision for the whole piece. And then they always bring something that does surprise you and shock you.

I like to surprise myself. I like to surprise my fans, too.

You shouldn't strategize your career if you're in a creative realm. You can't either. I love the unknown. I love the element of surprise. I've always felt really inspired by it. I love the spontaneity of the job. I think you can't really fight against it.

I basically expect anything. Isn't that wild? I used to surprise myself a lot: certain moves, how I'd get out of trouble. But at some point, you accept the talent that you have, you accept your creativity.

I think half the point of painting a picture is that you don't know what will happen... that if painters did know what was going to happen they wouldn't bother to do it.

I like to play unpredictable characters, and I like to be unpredictable in what movie I'll do. I want to skip to work. I don't want to repeat anything. What the future holds, I don't know, but that's what I like. I'll take any risk there is.

The beauty of the band was you never knew what was going to come out next.

It's a form of mental and verbal gymnastics, and one of the things that appeals to me most about commenting on darts is that no one knows exactly what I'm going to come out with next - and neither do I.

That is a big danger, losing your inspiration. When I work in film and television I try to do each take a little differently. I never want to do the same thing twice, because then you're not being spontaneous, you're just recreating something.

The idea is to do out-of-the-box films that showcase my versatility and talent.