Jamie Dornan Quotes

Good actors, you always know what they're thinking. That's why they're good actors.

I spend a lot of my time trying to draw the attention of actors to the minute and subtle details of human behavior, which was the sort of thing I was looking at when I was a neurologist.

There is this miraculous thing I heard Hugh Grant talking about - the thing about screen acting is that you can read people's thoughts. You are trying to register something inside and usually the eyes in cinema are where you will register that.

I found out was, by the rhythm of my chewing, how I chewed fast, slow or what have you, I could tell the audience what my character was thinking and feeling.

I'm a very physical actor; everything I do is pretty much body-oriented. I sometimes am able to deliver information just with a look; my face does two or three different things, and it says it all.

I really think that effective acting has to do literally with the movement of molecules.

Acting is very physical, even when it doesn't appear to be. It's about the arc of your body's language through a film.

In films, the camera catches each nuance of expression in close ups. On the stage, it is less subtle, you have to act with your whole body.

I use my hands a lot while acting.

I'm usually told to do a take where I do less with my face.

Some of the best actors in the world are very exterior actors, Anthony Hopkins being one of them. He knows exactly how to turn his face to get a certain expression. He knows exactly what to do with eyes, and with his voice. It's very exterior.

When actors are talking, they are servants of the dramatist. It is what they can show the audience when they are not talking that reveals the fine actor.

That is one of the first things my family, my mother and my grandfather, had taught me about acting: 'Use your eyes!' Not being able to do that physical aspect of it, and having to put it all into your voice? That was a little bit of a challenge.

For me really good acting is about subtext.

When preparing a role, I work first on the body language and physical aspects of the performance; the psychological dimension comes naturally once I'm in character.

It's hard to act with just your jaw.

Acting is the physical representation of a mental picture and the projection of an emotional concept.

All you've got to do is turn up and have a few facial tics and be a lunatic and throw someone around the room or blow their brains out and people think it's good acting.

Character acting is a much braver pursuit than a guy who runs around and intermittently clenches his jaw muscles.

I've always been a people-watcher, and as an actor, later, I just mined all those little details.

Breathing is always key in any character. When you have a character with no voice, that makes it even more important.

I think there's something to be said for being physical in acting.

I'm pretty much of a physical actor.

Body language is essential for an actress, even if you don't use your body in an athletic way. Just to be free, to use it like your voice. A body can be small and have incredible violence. A body talks.

It's a fine line. If you withhold too much, you come across as wooden - as I've often been described in some movies. Fair enough. I believe that the best performances are the ones that an audience has to search for.