Marion Cotillard Quotes

When you have a book as material as it is, it's a lot easier to create a character because you have so many resources to draw upon when acting.

Trying to be a good actor has to be involved with placing yourself imaginatively in different people's circumstances.

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

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

I just love to be able to actually build a character.

Don't think for a moment that I'm really like any of the characters I've played. I'm not. That's why it's called 'acting'.

I love the process of discovering a new world - that's why I'm passionate about acting. It's just discovering life, feelings, ideas and thought.

As much as I know people love the method and what you can draw out of yourself, a lot of acting is very imaginative.

If you have a very good concept of your character, you can snap into it.

In every film, whether it's a fictional character or not, you create an idea of the character and for me I always do a bad impersonation to start with.

You try, as an actor, to wear a mask; you're serving a story.

Acting is an imaginative exercise. It would be odd if you didn't try to identify with the roles you play, but I think I can differentiate between where my imagination is leading me and where I actually am.

The actor is there to translate what's on the page onto the stage or the screen. So I find it important that an actor manages to actually get out of the way, vanish as a person behind the character, never to be seen or talked about again. That's my philosophy.

I've approached every character I've ever played with a poem, first and foremost.

Every time when I start preparing my character for a movie, I always try to make up and create my own background story for the role in order to fill it with life.

When we don't have all the details about our characters, we have to make it up to fill in all the details. So, for me, writing and acting go hand in hand.

Actors act... Their job is to become this character. And I have, in fact, seen Sam Heughan become Jamie and Caitriona Balfe become Claire right before my eyes. It was an astonishing transformation.

I'm coming from the notion that acting is an art. It is not a business. It is about building characters, not about selling personalities.

I'm not really a guy who draws on things from my own past. I think if you're a competent actor with a good imagination, and if it's on the page, it makes your job a lot easier. If it's well written, it allows your imagination to run wild and draw inspiration from that.

When you get a character that you're just starting to work on, it's the most exciting and most terrifying feeling because you have endless hours of diving in, researching, reading, and decision-making.

I think the two main tools actors have are the imagination of what other people have gone through, to connect with and through research, and there's one's own experience.

I'm an artist - I'm an actor - so when I'm looking for something, I'm looking for stories.

Playing a real-life character, as an actor, gives me real high because there is so much of research material available in front of you.

When I'm given a role, I'm consumed by a passion to bring to life a character that exists only on paper. I mull over the character for days and internalise his feelings.

You're always trying to find common ground with whatever you do, but you want to not be thinking about yourself when you're performing a play. The job is getting yourself out of the way and letting the character go about the scenes.