Melanie Lynskey Quotes

I always knew I wanted to be an actress, and I had the attitude that I would learn more under people like Samuel L. Jackson, Laurence Fishburne or Mike Myers than from someone who had never starred in a movie. I just didn't think that someone who had never been in a movie could teach me how to act in one.

I do the best I can - I know my way around [Russian method acting pioneer] Stanislavski, but I can't take myself seriously like that. I respect people who do it, of course. I just think I'm lucky to still be working at 73. You reach a point in life where you just think, "Show up, do your job, make sure the cheque's on the way," and that's it. I'm not hungry to do anything more, really.

I like playing a variety of characters. I feel like I've been able to play different kinds of characters - I've done a lot of period pieces - but I've never had to play the same type of character too much.

I find out more about Jack every week. Essentially, I'm the same character, but I'm having more fun this season because I'm doing more aliases, you know. I like the surprise of not knowing.

I think every actor can agree that when you've been playing a certain character for awhile - no matter what that role is - it's always attractive to try something that's different.

I'm so different to the roles I play, and perhaps that's why they are appealing to me as an actor. But I would never want to inhabit my characters' shoes in real life.

It's really wonderful to play characters as different from each other as I can.

I have played many cop roles in my career, and my effort is to make each role different.

I mean I like most of the films that I've seen that I've been in. Those are the kind of films that I like to see. Am I getting better at making choices? Well, I think I might be getting better at reading scripts. Does that make any sense?

I don't think most people understand acting, even the people who call themselves savvy, even actors.

I probably am. I think Paul Giamatti also said in an interview that I was "f--king crazy." I'm flattered by that. I want to be that guy who's nuts who makes people think.

I wasn't working much. So I focused on studying, and I really learned what it means to be an actor. And here I was on Jonny Quest,working with all these great people from back in the golden age of Hollywood, who came up doing radio. These were journeymen, working actors. It made me proud, and gave me some insight into what acting was really about if you weren't a star.

My film school is making movies. But, I do think that being an actor has served me immensely, as both a writer and director, in terms of knowing what is playable and what will be fun to play, for actors, and also how to communicate to actors on set, and not screw them up and get them in their head.

As an actor the best thing you have is your imagination. You're not going to have all the experiences, but you draw on the things that you know. So I think you definitely use the things that you're familiar with to your advantage.

When I work on a film, you know, I try to get or inhabit the body of the character -from the vision of the directors or how i think the character should be - so if it's a film like SPEED, you hit the gym, you get to do some, train with SWAT People, hehe, but in general, I'm really focused and dedicated, and then in regular life, I don't go to the gym as often.

One thing that I don't think I do is play characters. Once you start claiming that you can do something that you're not, you're crazy. I think scripts can really surprise you. You go, "Wow, I did not know that that response could come from me. I did not know that I had that in me." And so, the process of making the movie is just finding that and digging a little deeper.

Acting is different all the time. When you're on set, different films, or just even in between, it's never the same. I think that's one of the things I love about it.

Sometimes it's to your advantage for people to think you're crazy

I like to think of myself as an actress, I think of going through all of the films as my kind of film academy, the way that I've learnt.

I know people think that acting is not quite the occupation of grown-ups, but it is actually the ultimate learning process: You get a multitude of experiences, all for the price of one life.

Come on, let's go. Crazy people do crazy things.

I certainly don' think I could've played the character [Idi Amin] the same way without being in Uganda. I loved working in Uganda.

I think actor is one of those jobs where you don't stop learning, even if you have a career longer than my little five years! You're meeting new people all the time, so you might as well just be a sponge and take everybody's input and style as a bit of a lesson.

Because life doesn't work that way. You can do everything perfectly. Do everything you think you're supposed to be doing. Fulfill every expectation that other people may have. And you still won't get the results you think you deserve. Life is crazy and maddening and often makes no sense.

I learned a lot about acting from the people I worked with.