Jena Malone Quotes

On the whole, actors shout when they don't know what they're doing, trying to make an impact.

Most of my training at graduate school was geared towards drama, so I feel good about it, and I can do it, but it requires a lot more work from me. I feel like with drama... well, with all acting, really, you need to honor the truth of the situation.

I can't act, and so I have to live that particular character in my real life and then exhibit it on screen.

What's beautiful about the actual acting class environment is that you can use it to push through everything: push your voice, push your inhibitions, push your fears, push your confidence, push your vulnerability, push your silences.

I think to be a good actor you need either a good experience of life or education, or both.

Now that I'm acting, I've realized that I don't have a lot of barriers. Certain actors have a hard time with anger or with joy or with whatever, and, I don't know, I don't seem to have those barriers.

So many actors get caught up in their technique, and to be honest, I see it really getting in the way. I see them forcing things. I definitely do my best work when I'm free of that. But I think as an actor, I work really hard in preparing the roles.

With acting, I always feel conscious of what I'm doing.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

Your primary tools, as an actor, are observation and imagination. You can pretty much get everything you need from that, and you do. It brings back that element of pretend.

When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression.

What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.

Like any other actor, I draw on life experience.

I think sometimes soap acting gets an unfair label for being bad and over the top. The lessons I learned there were so valuable. Seeing yourself every day on television, you learned what worked and didn't work, what was bad acting and what wasn't. Memorizing scripts became second nature.

The best way to study to be an actor is to interact genuinely with the people around you and observe and listen.

I've always been fairly confident in my acting.

A lot of the time, as an actor, you don't have the freedom to change what your lines are, and they can often be very unnatural or difficult to portray in a real light.

The one thing for an actor that is complete death is if you're bored, because that boredom will show in your work.

To be a good actor you have to feel life and observe life.

I always thought I was a pretty terrible actor.

One of the most important things for an actor is to observe humanity.

I think when you're acting, you usually don't have to know too much beyond how to pronounce the words you're saying.

A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.

I'd always wanted to be an actress, and suddenly I knew that learning to control my facial muscles was one of the best assets I could have as a performer.

Honestly, I'm a shallow performer. I just go with the text and feel my way around it. There's not a whole lot of shaping.