Todd Haynes Quotes

When you start out on a project as an actor, you know, you approach the character from the standpoint of maybe writing a list - even if it's a mental list that you make - of the adjectives that the character has or that character possesses.

Not all television scripts are created equal. And the process is ridiculous. They send you a script and want you in the next morning. That's not how acting works. You can do anything to me as an actor; I'm a very resilient guy. Just don't rush me. If you ask me to do it immediately with no time to prepare, I know you have contempt for actors.

Look, every actor has a different way of preparing or creating a character and yeah, we all are from different backgrounds.

Actors aren't all the same. They have very different skills. There are actors of intellect who are very thoughtful about everything they do... and then there are actors of instinct who don't know what they're doing until the cameras roll... My father was actually quite thoughtful about what he did, while my mother was much more instinctual.

I know there are different kinds of actors, but I tend to have less effective relationships with actors who have a very private process - who really need to do lots of internal work, so that I become merely a witness until they're ready to share.

I don't like to intellectualize about my acting. I don't sit around and study the pages of a script over and over again.

Sometimes you do complete run-throughs of scenes, sometimes you break scenes down into little bits. It just depends on what the actors like to do. It's almost like jamming.

Now there are certain things you have to prepare - like dialect and special skills. But in the moment, interaction between two characters on the page doesn't need - for me, I don't need to prepare that.

As an actor, you're lucky if you get a month before a project starts. There are times when you get a day before a project starts. So to be able to really sit and inhabit that mind and the story is really beneficial, and it really helps for me to be able to then compartmentalize as we're shooting and detach and go somewhere else.

Backstage life is terrific training for an actor, seeing shows from the wings.

You can be in an acting class all you want, but you don't fully learn until you get off that stage and in front of a camera.

I'm not a method actor, but I'm a big research kind of actor.

A lot of actors are like, 'Why do I do this? My character wouldn't do this? This doesn't make sense.' And in a comedy, you kind of just need to walk into the door.

The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings.

Well you know, Woody doesn't rehearse, as opposed to my own method of directing where I really work with actors around a round table for weeks, examining the values of the material, so his technique is very different.

You know, I don't support esoteric approaches to acting.

I try to create as many circumstances outside of set that help me fall into character when I get onto set.

I don't get nervous when I'm directing a play. It's not like acting.

I consider myself an actor that tries to have as many tools as possible in the bag. And I think that includes the method, then of course it includes some improv techniques, and includes all kinds of different things, because you never know when you're going to have to work on something and in what way.

I think it's counterproductive for actors to come to the set with well-thumbed copies of the book their film is adapted from.

I don't sit around and study the pages of a script over and over again.

Acting, and the privilege of being able to do it for a living, is so important to me. I don't turn up and just hope for the best. I really fret about it. I do my homework; I prepare myself for the experience of playing a particular character.

As an actor, you're never really in control of the product. I think the goal is to create what you want. And if you can get as close as you can get to the creation of something, it starts with development.

I like to rehearse. We did a lot of rehearsals for 'Moneyball,' but it is really individual to the actor. It's not like, 'Here is my process, everybody. Fit in.'

Emotionally, I think you're going on a journey with the character, so you have to be present for each and every scene, and for me, one thing I like to do is step away between takes, away from everyone else, listen to some music, and just get into that place to help me perform.