John C. McGinley Quotes

I get a lot of people saying to me, 'Oh, you're the actor who plays the nutters,' and I'm not. I'm the guy who plays human beings. I understand why the characters are doing what they're doing. When you play a villain, you don't play a villain: you play a human being doing what he thinks he needs to do to get what he wants.

It's always interesting to play characters who are vulnerable and how you display that vulnerability and what it's going to mean to people who watch it.

I'm attracted to playing characters that have flaws.

Every time you play a bad girl or guy in a movie, you really come from a place of pain.

I'm drawn to the romantic aspect of a character. It's human emotion. It's much more fun to watch. And it's much more fun to play.

Acting is different from stand-up. It gives you this ability to enter into another character, to create another person.

Being a good actor is sort of understanding the complexity of the human psyche and also knowing that we are none of us perfect.

I love character roles. I'm happier in them. I look for roles that have some kind of complexity.

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.

As an actor playing a character, you look for all of those avenues to see if there's any sense of vulnerability or love that you can bring to a character, and decide how that's portrayed and how that's going to be a struggle with the other characters. It's your job to take that on and challenge yourself, and meet that head on and see what happens with it.

I love acting and really taking on another person, another life.

In 'Garden Party' or '40 Days and 40 Nights,' I played characters who people don't necessarily like; I just find some humanity in them.

That's what I love about acting, you get to find little pieces of yourself in every character you play.

Our job is to represent the truth of human nature, whether you're playing a tender love story that's set in a coffee shop or whether you're in 'The Avengers,' which is set in a Manhattan which is exploding.

I like to build a character, trying to stretch my imagination as far to the walls of my brain as I can to come up with something that feels truthful and feels real - as close to the skin as I can get it.

I love to start characters in a place where you think you know them. We can make all kinds of assumptions about them and think they have no redeeming qualities, but like everyone, they're complex.

With 'Richard,' I was excited to make this film with such an amazing role for an actor. Play a wide range of emotion and really invest myself in the character.

When I act, a part of me goes into the character I am playing.

I don't mind a little Sturm und Drang. When I was doing 'Riding in Cars With Boys,' I wouldn't smile at anybody, because my character, Bev, was angry at the world. I'm the opposite. Inside my head I'd be like, God, I'll explain to you at the end of shooting that I'm not this person.

I find the trick to playing a villain is that you can't be bad for the sake of being bad. It has to be rooted in some sort of heartbreak.

I like playing characters with as many emotions as possible. I'd love to play a really crazy person - someone truly out of her mind.

If you don't care for the villain, if you don't love him and hate him at the same time, then he's just boring.

I really like playing the bad guy. There are so many more objectives to play when you're mad or villainesque, or when there's some agenda that you have. That's drama, that's where the heart lives. I love playing the bad guy, but especially the bad guy who's still with the girl.

I am really drawn to damaged characters, and I have a lot of sympathy for them. Making those complicated characters empathetic is something to strive for. It's too easy to create a good guy or a good girl.

I love the powerful woman who's complicated. There's no push to be one thing or another thing. It's all human. That's what you look for as an actor: characters written and portrayed in the most human way possible.