Olivia Colman Quotes

I feel that one of the hardest things in acting is the way you need to switch your emotions.

I can't act, and so I have to live that particular character in my real life and then exhibit it on screen.

I guess every actor has certain emotions they can access easier than others.

I don't have an 'actor cry.'

It was very difficult acting. I feel it is a very tough job to portray someone else's character and to behave like that on screen.

You have to find it in the moment, and that's one of the challenges of being an actor - especially a film actor - is that you have to maintain these heightened emotions for long periods of time. There's no trick to it. You just have to do.

As an actor, I love to play a good crying scene.

I find doing emotional scenes very tough, it is very challenging for me.

Some actors get by with behaving, not acting. You've got to sell the effect. I act more in the 'Nightmare' movies because it's not like me. I'm acting, not reacting.

There's a lot of actors that I admire because they can just switch one second into the character. Then, they go back to jokes, and then they're doing something really dramatic. I can't do that. I have to really focus.

As I told you, from the time I was fifteen, I thought the theater was too much involved with actors trying to make the audience love them, being over emotional.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

I do whatever I need to do to get into character. Sometimes it's being incredibly quiet, and sometimes it's being loose and goofy.

That's what acting is. You're pretending to be someone else.

I think if you work as an actress and are supposed as a character to be in love with some actor, then to some extent you do have to be in love with him.

Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion.

In my career, there have been three things that were challenging: playing gay; playing a Jewish woman; and playing Chekhov. The scariest part was playing Chekhov!

I don't honestly think people know what acting is.

As an actor sometimes you can be a bit emotional and forceful, and that's not always the way to be.

What I love to do requires portraying different characters, and you have to separate your life from the role.

I act according to the requirements of the character, and if I try to play the role, then I play it truthfully. In my daily life, I'm a laid-back, peaceful guy. I'm just doing my job to act.

Acting, at least for me, is very unreal, and when I'm doing it, I actually feel embarrassed.

Now that was one thing, but from an actor's point of view, this poor young man, crying from the moment I opened the door to the moment he left. Now if an actor did that they would say he's over-acting.

I'm interested in the acting and staging of specific emotions, and so I work with actors. It's a small proportion of what I do, but it's always what people seem to focus on.

To be an actress and act crazy is really fun for me, to be able to be acting like you'd never be able to act in your real life and scream and freak out. It's an interesting test for an actor.