Michael K. Williams Quotes

There are different kinds of actors, and movie actors tend to be exceedingly precise and mechanical in a way that's really admirable for me to watch. You always learn from them.

Acting is different all the time. When you're on set, different films, or just even in between, it's never the same. I think that's one of the things I love about it.

I never will believe there is such a thing as a great actor.

There are two different kinds of actors. There are people who take it just so damn seriously. Then there are guys like me that just get up and love doing it.

The process of acting, not necessarily the business of acting, but the actual doing of it in the moment is my greatest kind of personal passion, the thing that brings me alive the most. Also, my two children.

I am very passionate about being an actor, and I allow my passion to find its outlet in the work I do. I don't believe that it can be called perfection. It is true that when I am intensely passionate about my films, which I am, I don't leave any stone unturned and I put every ounce of my energy into that project.

I love acting and I love it in all its different manifestations.

In terms of acting, we go through phases of being really inspired by film and television and actors and works that we've read.

I'm just looking for interesting roles and giving acting the respect it deserves.

The basic laws of good acting are the same, but everything about the experience is different-your job responsibility, the time you spend on it.

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

I've been in front of the camera a million times as a musician, and even directed a few music videos. So, I know a lot about spacing, focus, blocking, etcetera. So, acting isn't totally new for me. Still, I find it fascinating, because you actually get to be another person.

Acting is mostly interpretive. They use different parts of you, and different sides of you, and different so-called talents.

I love to act, I've always wanted to be an actor. I think that acting and fiction go nicely together - being able to visualize language as something you perform, not just something that's there on the page.

Actors are different. Some actors play themselves very successfully, but I come from the theater. Having done Shakespeare, we sometimes did three or four characters in the same play.

I don't see any difference in the craft of acting, in film or television. It's absolutely the same. It's different storytelling, playing a character over multiple hours, as opposed to two.

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 like they talk about how American actors have the method and English actors just kind of switch views faster. And John [Hurt] is telling me the story as he's sitting in that witness chair, and they're putting the final touches of makeup on. And he goes, "Hold on a second," to stop his story so he can do the take. And he does this incredible take. They go, "Cut." And then immediately John goes, "Anyways, so Alec, he's playing the chess." And I'm just going, "Holy crap." You get whiplash from those kinds of quick turns!

I knew how to act and had studied acting and enjoyed it, but I'd never pushed myself to really perform as an actor, and create a role, and have the whole character's backstory.

You're an actor, you want to do a scene in class. But one of the things I've always had is I've always had a really good memory. So I would go and watch a movie and then I would see a scene in the movie and I go, hey I'd like to do that in class this Wednesday.

What I do is to collaborate with each actor and work one-on-one to create a character. And that is a matter of huge complexity and is a combination of a great deal of discussion and a lot of practical work. It involves a lot of consideration for the real people out there, and all kinds of sources of real people. The result is the character. But I'm not supposed to talk about what it is we do, because it's nobody's business.

I love working with actors. I love to see what they're going to do. There's just something very thrilling and satisfying with being involved with something, all the way through the process [making movie].

The actors I looked up to when I was a teenager, they all just disappeared into different characters.

Acting is everything to me and it's at the core of every decision. Whatever importance costumes, details, lights, camera, dialogue and everything else have, if the acting is bad, cheap, or overdone everything else is just gone.

Being an actor is easy, just picture someone in a room and you outside waiting for your cue to go in. Elliot Gould's been trying that for forty years.