Amy Ryan Quotes

I guess I'm probably a Method actor; I don't know... I just think of it as staying in the zone.

When you drop your guard in films, the acting process compensates. You get lazy and you start acting.

For me, acting is a series of impressions rather than trying to find one line through to the end, which risks becoming more of a presentation.

As an actor, I always like some tension, some distance, between me and the character I'm playing.

I find that I kind of have to sink into the character.

I don't prepare for my characters.

The actor's job is to put themselves in the shoes of the character they are trying to portray as truthfully as possible.

I'm the sort of actor who likes to talk about what we're going to do.

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

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

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.

As an actor, if you're just sitting and staring and you don't know who you are in your own mind, it's vacant. And sometimes the camera is an X-ray machine, it can pick it up.

What I find sometimes that is tricky is if actors are using too much of their own life in a picture, in a scene, they get locked into a particular way to play the scene, and it lacks an immediacy.

I do whatever I need to do to get into character. Sometimes it's being incredibly quiet, and sometimes it's being loose and goofy.

I think you can really tell a good actor if you can put a camera on them and they can just talk and emote and react and you don't have to keep cutting away from them, because they are the language and the behavior. It's all a tour-de-force performance.

I've probably had my best time acting - or not acting, or trying to not act - on things like 'The Low Down' or 'Treacle Jr.' I'm happiest doing things like that. Not just because they're lead roles, but because there's more freedom in them.

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.

I think substitution is a huge part of acting, but I don't personalise my work that much.

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.

Robert De Niro taught me how to listen, and how to be part of the conversation. It's not just about reading your lines and saying what's in the script; you have to understand your character, along with the other characters so that you can always respond.

I'm an emotional actor. When I'm doing a scene, I really believe it. I live the part as long as I'm in the scene.

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

When there's no technical problems, if you did the right casting, and the scene is well written, the actor will give you a strong performance with his intuition right from the start.

Acting is kind of difficult to intellectualize - it's a far more visceral experience. It's really hard to be able to think about and then employ these kind of esoteric notions of this person's backstory and try to weave it in somehow. It's just kind of impossible.

Here's probably a short answer - I never feel in this piece that I'm stepping out and being Andrea Martin. I always feel like I'm Golde, so whatever Golde would do within those realms, that's what I would do.