J. August Richards Quotes

I don't really prepare for each role the same way.

The trick to acting is not to show off, it's to think the thoughts of the character.

With any character you portray, you can never play the end in the beginning. You have to pursue and attack your intention as if they're going to be successful.

I think that different actors go about their preparation differently, but when it comes to acting, I use my imagination.

Well, I think one of the main things that you have to think about when acting in the movies is to try not to make the acting show.

Yeah, I think the common denominator - and this is probably going to sound like Acting 101 - but the common denominator is belief in the character in the moment.

The process changes slightly from role to role. Obviously, there are different things you're called on to do. You're not digging deep for Basher Tarr like I was for Paul Rusesabagina, but at the end of the day it's still all make-believe and you still are trying as realistically as you can to depict these characters.

In the work that I normally do, you have a whole script, a whole arc, that you play. And I do believe a good actor will play every bit of information they're given.

When I do film, I really take on roles and I take on characters.

A lot of what acting is paying attention.

What happens with every role, you have to trick yourself, you have to creatively find ways to explore the mental state of your character.

Every time when I start preparing my character for a movie, I always try to make up and create my own background story for the role in order to fill it with life.

I like to prepare for my roles well, so you can call me a method actor to an extent.

It's always important to try and get a real sense of the world around my characters. I especially think it helps actors.

I don't really prepare for roles. I just kind of do them!

I'm a technician. I don't go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.

I try to think what the character is thinking. Then, hopefully, I begin to feel it. I act and react not because I'm recalling a dog killed by a fire engine, but because I'm concentrating on what the character is going through.

I had an acting teacher tell me once that if you're playing a car salesman, you don't want to be an OK car salesman, you want to play the best car salesman.

In acting class, teachers talk about how the 'givens' of a situation help define a character.

Claude Rains was what we call an actor's actor. He was very involved with himself and his performance.

As an actor, one's role is very much to respond and react to the situation within the context of the character and his world.

I am a professional actor, and I don't go about moralizing about what the character does. Otherwise, seriously, why be an actor? You're not making some kind of social statement. That's not what actors do.

As long as you have the acting chops and the desire to get inside a character, you can play anything.

Ultimately, the idea of acting is to understand the people you're playing, and then where they're coming from is not so mystifying. You've got to detox a bit after, though.

My mentor Jon Simmons introduced me to the Stanislavski system, which is so heavy on back-story. So you write and write and write these back stories about a character and then you throw it away. So then on set, if it doesn't come, then you didn't do your work.