Steve Martin Quotes

A thing I do with all my characters is I break them down into one of three things: mind, heart, and groin. I figure out where they come from and what they utilize most.

I always think about Faulkner, and I would argue that there can be a difference between the way that characters express themselves internally and externally.

I try not to divide plot and character. I get to know a character by what they want and fear and how those internal forces play out in their lives.

In order to deliver the emotional truth in the story, you have to include some of the literal truth.

My acting teacher used to say that people reveal themselves in their opposites.

My thing is, I like playing guys who have a really interesting internal monologue.

The way I navigate scenes is through what I perceive to be the emotional truth of the character: what he wants from moment to moment.

For me, there is a stigma attached to playing beautiful parts. They are often empty characters whom the action happens around. I'm more drawn to characters with a complex internal life, who have a burning frustration underneath that keeps them going.

Dialogue is what a character's willing to share and reveal to another character, and the 90% they aren't willing to share is what I do for a living.

I think conflicted characters are always more interesting.

Know what your characters want, know what they need most, know what they fear most, and don't be fearful of facing it, no matter how unpleasant it may be.

You don't want to have a character say what's bothering him; you want to define characters by action.

I don't want a performance to give me everything. You can look at Charlotte Rampling in '45 Years,' and you don't really know what she's thinking, but you know something interesting is happening.

I look to find the heart and soul of people, of my characters. I look for the truth of them and the truths about life that are presented through them.

I'm not very good at depicting the characters' psychology on the page.

I like stories with lots of psychology.

I am not one of those actors who dwells on the histrionics and the subtext and future text of the character. I deal with the scenes that I'm doing at that specific time, because if I do that, they play in more of a real way.

Literature has become too psychological.

I think all interesting characters have some kind of a complex.

For me, playing a really bad character is about figuring out what brought the person to where we need him.

I choose to write characters from the inside because I feel like that's the way I'm gonna get the most honest version of them.

All of modern acting comes from Stanislavski, who was the Russian partner to Chekhov. When Chekhov was writing his plays, Stanislavski was running his theater. And Stanislavski really was the first inventor of modern acting and then everything that came out of the method and Stella Adler and the great teachers really came out of him.

It is quite possible--overwhelmingly probable, one might guess--that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology

Everyone's a little crazy when you get inside their head... it's only a matter of degree.

I always like [while filming] to have a sense of what led this person to this point.