Forest Whitaker Quotes

As an actor you bring some of your own experiences which can make things easier. You build off of it, but your imagination is always the best thing you have as far as creating things I think specifically for what that character is going through. But you're definitely drawing obviously upon things that you can connect to, and then you kind of mold the change that you're making into something that's right for the character.

It kind of varies. I don’t have a method yet. It depends on the script and the character I think I need. I’ve worked with acting coaches, researched roles, and channeled different parts of myself. It’s on a case-by-case for me, right now.

I think you're bound to get a sense of any character that you play. It's not something you often do in comedy.

Actors pull from their own experiences to bring reality to the characters. I wouldn't want to play someone who's a lot like me. There would be no turning it on or off.

As an actor, you use the things from yourself that you can apply to the character.

I don't think there's a certain part of a character I take with me. There's a certain part of me I leave with each character, though.

I don't think an actor needs to necessarily go through his things to do his job. I think it's way more important to imagine. And then, when you're imagining, your experiences, your images and your own personal things will show up, but you keep imagining. You don't get stuck in your own personal things, otherwise you are telling your story in every character, and that's not interesting for anybody.

In every character you play, as much as you hate to admit it as an actor, but there's an element of you that you bring to it.

My character in 'Cocktail' was different from my personality. Homi Adajania took me to London, showed me how girls dress and behave there. I had not seen that kind of lifestyle before.

In the moment of acting you don't feel like anything, you feel like the person, as much as you can.

Sometimes you can just step into the character, and you get all your feelings and emotions just from sympathizing with her and being her. But then, other times, you just have to resort back to anything that you've been through in your own life and try to play that.

You draw on whatever's relevant to the part you're playing; it makes it more personal.

I'm not a method actor, but I'm affected by the life I share my life with during shooting. It's always a very strange and special period for me.

There's a wonderful adage in acting that you're stuck with the character, but the character is also stuck with you.

As an actor, you can't just imitate someone. You have to get under her skin.

There are elements of myself in every character I do, just because you take from your real life experiences and sprinkle those into your character.

I believe in the fact that to portray a character convincingly, you need to live that character, own that character. You have to be earnest with every line that you deliver. However, it doesn't mean that you have to cut off your true self.

For me, it is important to pick up characters which I can relate to. Or I recall an incident in my life or tap into my innermost emotions and try to bring that reality on to the screen.

It becomes very easy as an actor to immerse yourself when you're in the real places.

I think it's my job to like any character I play - to understand and appreciate a character, to look at the world as much as possible from their point of view. I don't look at it just technically: learn the lines, figure out what gestures I want to bring and play, and that's it. I like to learn as much as I can about the person, and see what happens.

I think always as an actor. I go in knowing how I'm going to play it. That's about it.

That's my way in the very beginning - how to enter it [a role]. Very quickly in the process, I don't think about voice being separate from the way you hold your head or the way you sit or the way you put on lipstick. It's all a piece of a person, and it's all driven by conviction.

Growing up where I did, you met a lot of colorful characters whose business was on the other side of the law, or more likely you didn't know what they were up to, and you never would. So playing those kinds of characters now, I can draw on that. The rest of it, you can practice or learn from books. But mostly, I draw from my experiences. That's all I have, you know.

One thing that I don't think I do is play characters. Once you start claiming that you can do something that you're not, you're crazy. I think scripts can really surprise you. You go, "Wow, I did not know that that response could come from me. I did not know that I had that in me." And so, the process of making the movie is just finding that and digging a little deeper.

I'm all for whatever it takes to get wherever you need to get with a character, as long as you don't wipe it on me.