Wong Kar-wai Quotes

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.

There's pre-production, and the second part is when you start rehearsal. Pre-production was a very large learning curve for me.

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

Now there are certain things you have to prepare - like dialect and special skills. But in the moment, interaction between two characters on the page doesn't need - for me, I don't need to prepare that.

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

If the script's good, everything you need is in there. I just try and feel it, and do it honestly. I also don't learn things for auditions, because I feel like it's just a test of memorizing rather than being real. Maybe every other actor would think that was terrible, I don't know. But it seems to have worked for me, so far.

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

I think acting really helps as a director. It's just no question, because you totally understand the acting process.

Mostly I work really unconsciously, and I think if the scenes are really well written, which they are, and if I just throw myself into it, I don't really think about it.

I mean, a lot of time rehearsals are taken up with other things other than preparing a character.

Good actors, especially when they know their character, will come in and either tell you in advance that they have an idea, or in the middle of the rehearsal or the scene they'll let it loose and you go, 'Ah that's great.'

When you shoot a film, you have very little time to waste, and I try to go into the character as soon as possible and stay there as much as I can.

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.

Sometimes you do complete run-throughs of scenes, sometimes you break scenes down into little bits. It just depends on what the actors like to do. It's almost like jamming.

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.

I don't sit around and study the pages of a script over and over again.

I think you get the most honest performances when an actor shows up to set with their lines memorized. That's a very important thing that a lot of people seem to forget. You have a pre-conceived notion of what you want the scene to be, but once you get there, that goes out the window and it turns out to be a way that you never imagined.

I learn the techniques and then take what I need. I have the Essie Davis technique of acting. I'm an instinctive actress.

I have done theatre, and I enjoy the process of smaller films a lot more. When I do such films, there are certain things which I get to do which are untapped. The scenes give me the liberty to play and mould the character in accordance to the director's mindset.

I never do any research for my roles.

We get the scripts before the table read, but I don't look at them until we go into the table read. I don't want to know, when I'm playing a moment in the current episode, what's going to happen because it might change how I'm playing that.

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.

What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.