Jack Nicholson Quotes

Of course you can find something exciting and dynamic in any character you want to portray.

I have just gained a deeper and deeper respect for acting and the whole art of it because you're really trying to live a life and to do the best justification for it.

Well, with each character that I play in my life as an actor, I try to figure out how to find the challenge.

Talking to actors is the same as talking to any other artists; it's getting into the moment for them, and making sure they can lose themselves in the performance!

I know what I love about acting - and it's the creative process.

I'm a method actress in my songs, which is why it's hard to sing them.

I think there's this idea that the depth of an actor's performance is built on tough times or horrible events or isolation, but I never found that. I figured that my imagination coupled with the story can get me anywhere.

An actor only has his own understanding and experience to work with.

An actor should take lessons from a painter and a sculptor.

You really can't explain how you do the things you do. I can't, anyway. I love certain actors, but sometimes they say the stupidest things about technique. I don't want to say something stupid.

As an actor, our very palette is one of imagination. So it is a walk onto an empty space and then imagine the world beyond it is what we do.

I did a film called 'Floating' early on that had a scene which was similar to a real-life situation I was in at the time. It involved me having a conversation with my father, who was dying. It was close to home and it made me realise acting wasn't just making faces for the cameras, it was a real art form.

I had to focus and create a character in Bagger Vance, not just do my 'Will Smith' thing and get paid.

All the theories that acting is reacting to imaginary circumstances as though they are real, and directing is turning psychology into behavior, those are all stabs at something that can't be taught. All the great actors can't talk about what they do, and they don't want to begin to talk about it. They just do it.

An actor works with their soul and their thought.

Everything, I think, about acting is based on imagination.

I am really not of the school of naturalism. I like style, and you can use more style in theater than in film roles. I love to sink my teeth into a part.

I love an acting challenge, and I love getting to sit down with my script and do all my drama work.

You know, working as an actor, I'm always working within my own imagination.

I always enjoy impersonating my characters in the first-person singular.

What I love about a play is that it's such an investment because only time can create a lot of what happens onstage.

With film, it's all about the actor being able to feel the things that the character's feeling. It must do some strange things to your mind. Music I find much easier because you're being honest about where you are as a person.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

I've given every maid I've portrayed soul and heart.

I have a constant sort of melancholy approach to acting that fuels me. I want to do everything.