John Hawkes Quotes

I take my time to get into the mindset of the character and say my lines. I really have to be the person that I am playing.

You have to like the characters you play.

I really do literally put myself into a character's shoes.

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

But today I felt different, today I forgot how long it takes to get into the skin of a character and I remembered it, because today I actually got into that skin and it felt so different.

You can't judge a character that you're playing, because then you're fighting against doing what the character's doing.

When you play a character, you commit yourself to their beliefs.

That's why I enjoy acting: getting in the mind of someone else.

The best advice my dad ever gave me is that acting is believing. 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.

Sometimes I get into the movies and into the roles; it's hard for me to move on.

When you take on a role, even if the character is somebody that you are dissimilar to, you have to identify with the role and look for an emotional connection even if there is not a biographical one.

You have to believe that you are the character or the thing or whatever the hell you're playing.

In order to inhabit a character, you've got to embrace and empathise with them.

You use your emotions to try and find them in the character that you're playing.

There's something magical about theater. You can live the character every single day to the point where you become that person.

You've got to internalize the character. You've got to learn the words. These are separate things, but they work together.

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.

You don't want to play a character you can't inhabit or commit to fully.

If you're playing somebody who is not you, then you can imagine that you are that person. You can feel like he feels, move like he moves, look like he looks - in your own mind.

I think it's always easier to play parts that you have something concrete that you can relate to.

Keats himself spoke about how Shakespeare was capable of erasing himself completely from the characters he had created. As an actor, that is what I'm trying to do.

You have to love the characters you play, even if no one else does.

I like to be absorbed in what my character's doing.

I liken every character that I do to a relationship that you're in.

Your job as an actor, I guess, is just to make people relate to the character.