J. K. Simmons Quotes

Everyone brings their own particular skill set to the job, and acting training can work for a lot of actors, and it can't. I've seen a lot of really good actors go into acting schools and then come out a little bit corrupted.

I run the Actor's Studio on the West Coast, and one of the things I say all the time to the people I teach - many of whom are acting teachers - is that an actor needs to make choices that make him present.

I know with Gary Ross especially, he kind of gave me pointers here and there, but he kind of let me become firm in any way that I needed, and he just let me try things and to explore what I can do with my acting. So that was very helpful.

I think sometimes soap acting gets an unfair label for being bad and over the top. The lessons I learned there were so valuable. Seeing yourself every day on television, you learned what worked and didn't work, what was bad acting and what wasn't. Memorizing scripts became second nature.

I think if you're an actor, then you can work on stage - but if you've never done it before, you're going to have picked up a few things that you're going to need to change when you're working on stage.

The best way to study to be an actor is to interact genuinely with the people around you and observe and listen.

I learned my business in the theater and in television, particularly working with the actors. You can learn much more in the theater than directing a movie, because then you have no time when you are shooting a movie to really work with the actors. You have to learn this craft somewhere else.

I thought acting was all about natural instinct but I've realised, through working with so many talented actors on 'Wild Swans' and 'Run,' that I can see the training. That's why I am back at drama school.

I've grown tremendously as an actor by being there. It is comic writing the likes of which I don't know that I'll ever see again and it's been a great, great experience.

It's not like every actor needs to train, but an actor will either develop their process through training or through working.

I love working with actors, and it's all been based on my being trained in the theater.

As an actor, I had noticed very vividly that very few directors know how to direct actors because they haven't done it.

I don't watch anything of mine much. I haven't gone to drama school, or college, either. I just like to watch other actors in action. I learned so much from working with De Niro. I'd be in a scene with him where I was supposed to be acting, and I was just watching.

I got my degree in acting and theater, and then I had a teacher who told me to take a class with The Groundlings. And for a second, I thought, 'Well, I don't know about that. I'm a serious actress.' And then I did, and I loved it, and I said, 'Ah, well, I guess this is what I'm going to do now.'

Something I learned as an actor was which scenes needed to be rehearsed and which actors are good with rehearsal, which actors learn from it, and which ones grow stale because they start to second-guess themselves.

As an actor just learning the craft, you literally do a scene with Jimmy Gandolfini, and you walk away a better actor.

Ryerson helped me because I was around acting all the time. It was pretty much all I thought about, even if I didn't really get to practice every day; I definitely thought about it. Actually a lot of it was just sitting and watching, especially in my last year, but I think a good actor learns from everything.

I am learning the grammar of acting on the sets. And I am happy that way.

No, I haven't taken training as such but I used to attend all those 7 day workshops before the play. Those workshops aren't so professional but it's enough to give you a good idea what acting is all about.

I love directing actors. In the last few years, I have started expanding my directing into workshops for actors who truly want to grow and learn. My mom was a high school drama teacher, and teaching makes me very happy. My workshops are nurturing.

That's basically how I learned everything as an actor. I was just a kid, and I worked with these actors, and I'd ask them questions, and then something would work for me, and I'd try to move forward with it.

Naseer Sir taught me while I was a student at the Film and Television Institute of India. Anything I know about acting is thanks to him.

When I first started my acting career, I only knew what my acting teacher taught me. When a director gave me an impromptu direction, I didn't know what he wanted me to do, and I wanted to escape from the place.

I was trained by Method acting teachers and we were taught that aside from whatever gift you may or may not have or the level of that gift, that you were obliged to know how to build a table. It's a craft. It's like being a ballerina or a violinist.

Film acting is really the trick of doing moments. You rarely do a take that lasts more than 20 seconds. You really earn your spurs acting onstage. I needed to do that for myself. I would hate to say at the end of everything that I never did a stage play.