Virginia Madsen Quotes

You play to different parts of yourself when you take on various roles. Like, you are your confident self when you're playing this person, and you're your sad self when playing another person - but it's all a part of you somewhere.

I don't believe you can get into somebody's character but more that somebody comes in you. You just use yourself. In everything I play, I feel like it is me. I just say different things on different times and look different.

Recording is more autobiographical than acting. It's me - either how I'm feeling then or once felt at some point in my life. It's all me.

When you play a character, there's always a part of you. Like, you always bring out a side of you when you do another character.

None of the characters I played was very close to me as a real person.

You obviously don't have to be a murderer to play a murderer or you don't have to be a dictator to play a dictator. So, you're an actor. You come up with whatever you come up with to play that part.

Being an actor lets me be a million different things.

I always say that I can play sort of six variations on one girl, all of whom are a variation on me. Maybe I'll think of myself as an actor if, like, I do a corset drama.

When I'm creating a character, I don't see it so much as playing someone else as just playing a specific part of myself under certain circumstances.

I'm not saying that I am all of my characters, but for me to bring a character to life, you've got to be able to find your own truth.

I think there's always pieces of yourself that bleed into your character. That's inevitable.

Well, I think most people understand that there's a big difference between who you are and who, you know, you play.

Preparation is definitely important, but it depends on the kinds of roles I do. Like, I completely identify with my character in 'Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani.' I had to be myself and I didn't have to actually prepare for it.

When you act, you're always playing a version of yourself. You can't bring more to the role than what you are.

Every character brings new light to a different part of myself, which is something I love about every role I get to play.

I mean, he's one of the greatest characters I've gotten to play over my career, so there's a little bit of me in Zuko and a little bit of Zuko in me.

I feel like I never get to play any version of myself or get to be a normal person.

I've always been an actor. That's my job — I can be anything you want me to be.

It was only when I started making short films in college and I was looking for girls to play the me-ish parts that I thought, Well, maybe I'm just going to try doing this myself before somebody else comes in and handles it. For a long time my acting was just a marriage of convenience between me and these characters that I was writing.

I have some friends who are actors. I've watched them work. And I would say that of all the arts, acting is the most grueling, thankless. Never apologize for your work.

It’s always about, somehow, finding a part of myself that is relevant, and then turning the volume up on that particular part. So, I am all of the characters I've ever played, and I am none of them at the same time.

As an actor, I've been drawn to those characters that are further away from who I may be.

I think all characters that we play are facets of ourselves.

There are definitely things about acting that have helped me growing up and finding myself, but there are also things that make it a bit more difficult. I guess I do allow myself to explore more when I know that, at the end of the day, if I really wanted to, I could just play a different person all day and be fine with that.

I don't think there's a certain part of a character I take with me. There's a certain part of me I leave with each character, though.