Billy Campbell Quotes

As an actor you get categorized by other people, but it's not like I arrange myself into comedy mode or serious mode. If it's good writing you just have to play it true - if it's funny, it's funny. But obviously you don't want it to be amusing if you're playing Hedda Gabler!

In every character you play, as much as you hate to admit it as an actor, but there's an element of you that you bring to it.

Yeah, I think the common denominator - and this is probably going to sound like Acting 101 - but the common denominator is belief in the character in the moment.

The secret to acting is don't act. Be you, with add-ons.

You want to try and bring a character to life in an honest a way as you possibly can. It doesn't matter whether he's a doctor, an actor, a car salesman or a captain of a starship. If you can bring truth and honesty to that character, then your audience will believe you.

When you are developing a character you have to bring so much of yourself to the role.

To me the voice has always been the way to start any character. Once I find that, I'm good to go.

The good and wonderful thing about my whole career is that I've always felt that the audience, if I do it well, will track wherever I go, whether it's President or a lawyer or bad guy or good.

It's well done if you can do a part and not have the acting show.

It's hard to actually take details from your personal life and apply them a scene because, as much as you can identify with a feeling, you just get muddled. As soon as you start bringing your own stuff in, it's like, 'No, that's not right.' You're playing a different person. You can relate, but you have to leave that stuff at the door.

There's something about being any kind of entertainer that is acting. You have to put on a show. Things you wouldn't do in your life, you do on stage. You have to let go. And that's extra hard for rappers. We have a tendency to, quote unquote, keep it real. As an actor, you have to be able to humiliate yourself. Do whatever it takes.

Most of my training at graduate school was geared towards drama, so I feel good about it, and I can do it, but it requires a lot more work from me. I feel like with drama... well, with all acting, really, you need to honor the truth of the situation.

I just play him as myself, I don't ease myself into any role really. I stick a beard on and play me.

Any good actor is a character actor.

For me, it's just acting. It's pretending. The best actors are children, and children don't do research. You never see a child going, 'I'm wondering about my motivation here. How can I do this toy? How can I do this train? I don't feel train.'

I'm an actor, and I'm supposed to reflect real people.

Each action of the actor on the stage should be the visible concomitant of his thoughts.

I think being a character actor is exciting in that it allows you to embody completely different things, whether it's through wild accents or a crazy bad guy or a drunken good guy.

When I was starting out, doing guest spots on TV, and even commercials, I would go in with a whole crazy wardrobe and some terrible accent. Obviously, I was doing too much. If you bring too much flavor to it, it's absurd. There's something to just being spontaneous.

You draw on whatever's relevant to the part you're playing; it makes it more personal.

I don't really know how to act that much. I'm quite good at comedy, but it's mostly acting naturally.

Acting is not acting. It isn't putting on a face and dancing around in a mask. It's believing that you are that character and playing him as if it were a normal day in the life of that character.

I don't have any theories about acting, and I don't think about how to do it, except that an actor shouldn't take himself too seriously, and shouldn't try to make acting something it isn't.

I find talking about acting very boring, having to come out with platitudes about how terribly nice everyone is. I would much rather just do it.

I became acutely aware of how important it is to separate the difference between who you are and who the character you're playing is.