Donald Pleasence Quotes

I never do any research for my roles.

As a filmmaker I find it much more rewarding to work with actors who are classically trained. It's about the work and only the work.

I don't really prepare for each role the same way.

I don't personally look to my own life experiences for answers about how to play a scene.

I'm a task-oriented actor. A pretender. And I try to invent my process anew each time I make a new project. So I frown on any method.

When you get to set, you don't try to play the plot; you just play the character.

Every actor has a method.

I'm not a Method actress. I work in the present, the day-to-day.

As an actor, you create a character from your understanding of what you have heard and your observations. Eventually, every film is an extension of the images that I have seen or what I have heard or read somewhere.

There are two schools of thought: There are those actors who explain to you that they know exactly how they're going to do the part... And then there is the other method, which is to have no method at all. This is mine.

I had to focus and create a character in Bagger Vance, not just do my 'Will Smith' thing and get paid.

In choosing any role, I ask the same questions: what kind of part is it? is the role challenging? does the director have a vision? is the story moving? etc.

You know, I've never been much of a method actor. I feel like, with every project I go in extremely prepared and I like to have a good time.

My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don't get it, I can't do it.

See, that's the thing: I'm not one of those actors who thinks, 'God, I've got to improvise and make it my own.' No, my first job as an actor is to take what's written and make it work. And then, if they want me to improvise, I'll do that.

Creating a role is an interesting thing - each show or each situation is different.

There are a lot of actors who will sit here and talk to you about characters - 'He does this, and she's a really interesting character because she does this.' I'm not like that at all. I'm not an actory actor.

I don't like to intellectualize about my acting. I don't sit around and study the pages of a script over and over again.

With any actor, if you know your character well enough, you'll know pretty much what he would say under any circumstance, or whatever situation might rear its head.

Part of an actor's job is to draw up a back story.

I'm not really into method acting - the way I was taught was the good old-fashioned British way of just doing your research and getting on with it.

In every film, whether it's a fictional character or not, you create an idea of the character and for me I always do a bad impersonation to start with.

I think people are always trying to demystify whatever acting is, so they want to know what your method is.

Any good production team is going to allow an actor to breathe life into the characters - that's why they hired that woman, that man, whatever the case.

I don't prepare for my roles. I don't watch movies to get inspired. I don't dig deep. I'll never be that type of actor, and I doubt that I ever will be.