Malcolm McDowell Quotes

I am a professional actor, and I don't go about moralizing about what the character does. Otherwise, seriously, why be an actor? You're not making some kind of social statement. That's not what actors do.

I like being part of good movies and telling stories that mean something to me. I also like playing characters that I look up to.

I do not hold that because the author did a bad job of writing the player need trump it with the same kind of acting. When I go into a picture I have only one character to look after. If the author didn't do him justice, I try to add whatever the creator of the part overlooked.

Strength of character is already written. What we bring, as an actor, is an almost 3D-ness to it.

I play one role until I take on another, which is exactly what a professional actor should do.

I've always wanted to do a feature film, because, as a model, you have to play so many different characters.

I like to stretch myself, and playing a dance-hall hostess is quite a stretch, but I feel comfortable with it.

I want audiences to see me in different avatars.

As an actor I can bring the story, the narrative in each performance. If I can't do that, then… might as well give up as an actor, hadn't I?

I think that's the great thing about acting: you get to play different characters and enhance one part of yourself to really bring that out and create a new person.

My job as an actor is to be visible and to tell stories.

I just try to put myself in the sense of being a character, sometimes male. I suppose I just like the idea of trying to be different people coming from all kinds of different angles. Most of it was just from my imagination.

I find often in Hollywood there are many people who play themselves really beautifully. And certain parts are not that dissimilar from who you are as a person. And there are other parts where you would like to think that you have nothing in common with those characters, but you probably do have more than you think.

I think your text [script] is everything; it's what informs you; it's what gives you the given circumstances. Then you take that and you add your own creativity and your own spin on things and you make it personal. That's what makes that character and that text unique to you, when you personalize it. I think that's where your job as an actor comes in.

Because it's me playing the character, trying to find a way to make it believable and entertaining and interesting.

I love weird man, when you get to do something that you don't necessarily get to do in real life, play characters that are a little bit outlandish.

You don't do characters that are the same as you, otherwise why bother to act?

Acting is an imaginative leap, really. And imaginations prosper in different circumstances. And it's being able - I can't tell you how one does, but one tries to read those circumstances correctly.

I'm pulling out different aspects of my personality in writing each character and, if I'm doing my job well, I'm being true to the situation and true to the character.

In a sense, all actors are character actors, because we're all playing different characters. But a lot of the time - and I don't know, because I'm not a writer - but writers a lot of times write second- and third-tier characters better than they write primary characters. I guess they're more fun.

I'll never approach a part in the same way again. Piaf taught me so much. In terms of my work, I think I'll enjoy it even more than before, because now I know that characters truly exist in their own right. I'll have a way to bring them even more intensely to life.

I consider it an actor going to work with other actors. It's not a competitive sport, it's not to outact anybody else, sorta thing, you can be a bad actor but you don't outact anybody, you just bring your character as best as you can.

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.

If you're a song writer, it's a bit different because you are expressing your own words, feelings, perspective. As an actor, you are doing your best to interpret and express the root of the character's perspective which have been established by the writer. There are parallels of performing. Tapping into your own emotional piggy bank. The biggest commonality is if you are successful in either industry, you get free snacks all the time.

I love the idea of getting to play different characters and tell some stories. When you're passionate about a project, it's nice to get the part.