Jeff Baena Quotes

I actually love actresses who look like they feel really natural. I like Patricia Clarkson, Laura Linney, Frances McDormand. Those are actresses where the second they show up on screen you're like, oh my gosh, this movie just got so much better.

As a director, I have to feel realism from actors, and they can't be plastic.

I think in this movie, every time I see his work, I'm blown away by it because he, to me, he really embodied the character so powerfully and so real, so truthfully to me.

You want to be honest with a character and play it truthfully, and you want to be genuine with your character.

That's what acting is all about - it's all about bringing truth from your own life, and putting it into your characters. If you have the advantage of using your own life in your work, that's always the way to go.

I really love the independent movies and I just think that sometimes when they throw a lot of money into it and a lot of special effects and a lot of stunts that you lose the connection, the human connection and I personally love movies that are about the human connection.

I approach a comedy the same way I do a drama. I try to make it as real as possible.

It's not good just to have life experience of film-making and that's all. It's hard to play a real person when you've been in jets and town cars for three years.

I like to try to make the characters I play be as human as possible.

Opera is full of trappings that make us go away from being human. You can't let them do that. You can't walk like you're in an opera! You have to make it real. You have to just be there.

I wanted to do different movies. I wanted to do deeper movies. More human movies based on human feelings.

We're all complex human beings, and if some of that complexity shows through, I think it's advantageous for the movie.

I can't do a role or character unless I have lived that character. For me, the best teacher is life.

Obviously we know Bill Hader is funny and charming, but my question is, can he do raw humanity and naturalism? I think so.

Hopefully, any character I play has an anchor in reality.

Obviously an actor draws on his own experience.

I tend to play more true-to-life characters in real situations.

My primary instinct as an actor is not the big transformation. It's thrilling if a performer can do that well, but that's not me. Often with actors, it's a case of witnessing a big party piece but wondering afterwards, where's the substance?

I think that's what distinguishes Schmidt, really. In the movies now, so much of what is appealing to an audience is the dramatic or has to do with science fiction, and Schmidt is simply human. There's no melodrama; there's no device, It's just about a human being.

When you are playing someone who is dealing with issues on a really personal level, if you don't bring your own issues into the equation, it's not going to feel really personal to the people watching it.

Working on 'Honeymoon,' an independent movie, was almost like working on TV with the space, and everything was stripped down - costume and hair and makeup. There was very little to hide behind, and you absolutely had to create the character from within.

I think the responsibility that any actor has is to bring some truth to the work.

I knew what kind of actor I was going to be, and I looked for inspiration to people like Alec Guinness, Cyril Cusack, Timothy Spall and Jim Broadbent. I looked at them and thought, 'They play human beings as they really are.'

If you're going to play human beings, and you're going to play them three-dimensionally, you have to show every side of them.

Even great actors who transform who they are still go to a really honest place; I think that's sort of that special skill that actors have.