Rasika Dugal Quotes

I research every part thoroughly. I talk it out with my actor friends, but then I throw it all away when I get to the set. You have to be spontaneous.

Acting has always been instinctive to me.

On 'There Will Be Blood,' I was cast at the last minute. I had 3 and a half to 4 days to get ready for the first day. I just went for it, threw myself in there and gave it everything I had. That was just guts and instinct, not a lot of preparation.

One was never taught how to begin at drama school. But all it required was one intake of breath.

I think that's the thing I learned at 'Saturday Night Live' - any time I would try and strategize, I would always, always fall on my face. Things worked out when I tried to make it about what I was feeling at that moment and what I was into in that moment of my life.

A lot of the stuff you do as an actor - or I do, because I can't speak for everyone - is not always consciously thought out. A lot of the time, for me, it's actually just feeling stuff, and it happens all in the moment and your body reacts.

If you get an impulse in a scene, no matter how wrong it seems, follow the impulse. It might be something and if it ain't - take two!

There's actually something interesting about having no rehearsal time - you have to just walk in and go with your gut, which is exciting.

I never think about the play or visualize anything. I do what comes to me at that moment. Instinct. It has always been that way.

There is a part of your brain that has to stop when you're acting. You have to be in the moment and dare to fly. Words can't be on your mind.

The best actors just stay in the moment, and whatever happens in the scene is a genuine surprise. You really do not know what's going to happen next. But living that out in life is very dangerous because it throws you into a place where you don't know if you're going to survive.

I think I get credit for my timing because most of the time, I really have no idea where I'm going with it.

I don't have a process; I just feel it. My book on acting would be very short.

You have to run, an awful lot, on instinct. Even on 'Veep,' it's not like you get weeks of rehearsal to break out what's going on in the scenes.

I fly from the seat of my pants, basically.

Acting isn't something that I think about very consciously, somehow that just doesn't work for me. I just kind of feel my way into it.

you have to play it out sometimes.

I go by instinct - I don't worry about experience.

When I write an email where I outlined a whole scene, it just came out of my unconscious, it comes from a deeper place. The same thing happens when the actors go, take after take, and just get lost in it. When you're in a house, you don't think about being in the house; you're just there.

I think back story can help guide your choices, but when you're playing a scene, you're not making choices; you're just intuitive.

I think there are actors who are like, 'Okay, what am I doing, how am I doing it, what's the appeal? Tell me what to do, what are the exact lines from the script? Okay, I got it.' I am not that way. I would be a terrible bus driver. I'd want to be like, 'Oh, let's take this side road! Let's see what happens when we go down this back alley.'

I love the idea of playing a character that didn't over think everything. He knows what's in front of him and he has an ability to just say whatever he felt.

I think people who are regarded as better actors must have better instincts because, at the end of the day, once they say 'action,' it's you who has to do it right. You can do all the research and preparation or none at all, but it's your instincts that tell you, 'No, I'll do it like this.'

You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something in the moment.

In college, I went to school for acting; we had to learn phonetics just to be able to do dialects and all that stuff. I'm somebody who does better just hearing it. I'll just imitate it, and I get it better that way. When I know too much information, I'm not great.