Angelina Jolie Quotes

People like to think that actors are terribly worried about ghosts of other actors in the parts they play. But you just have to get on with it.

Quiet people, people who aren't given to emotional outbursts, people who are economic with words - they're also fun to play, but you find yourself needing a laser precision in those roles. Otherwise you just sort of stand around, looking slightly brain-dead. You worry about being uninteresting.

I'm one of the actors who really enjoys working with kids and animals, which is always a no go. There's something beautiful about it because you tend to forget yourself as an actor.

Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult.

One of the hardest things to do in acting is to stop thinking about yourself and stop being self-conscious.

I want to try and do as much as I can as an actor. So far I think I've done pretty well with being a minister's son. And now I know I'm pretty darn good at playing a woman too.

Inevitably, when a scene isn't working for me, it's because I'm being self-conscious, and I'm not putting enough of my focus on my fellow actor.

My character in 'Hollyoaks' went through absolutely everything! There's not one emotion where I'm going to go, 'I don't know how to play this.'

I'm not a natural-born actor. So it's been a very slow learning curve for me.

Acting is a subtle combination of hiding and revealing yourself, and as I'm not an extrovert, this is painful for me.

At a certain point in my career, I was probably having a difficult time 'holding space.' So you get a character that has to be commanding in order for him to resonate and make sense.

When you do action stuff and sci-fi stuff, you have a lot to hide behind - the hair and the makeup and the special effects. But when you play a normal girl, it's challenging because you have to trust yourself.

One of the things I figured out was that I was having good gigs when I wore jumpers. It was because I looked more like an outsider, so they expected me to talk about weird stuff rather than normal stuff.

In stand up, you get an awareness of how you come across, but in acting there is almost a hyper-awareness on how you might be physically perceived.

When I was in acting class, we did a lot of really serious scenes, and we didn't do comedic scenes. I felt like doing those scenes, it didn't come out of my mouth the right way. I don't know if it's because my voice is different, or what it is about me, but it just seemed a little off.

Working with any actor is like working with a monkey.

You need to be disciplined and you need to try to occupy a zone of acting that is always quite scary because you don't think you're doing anything.

Auditioning is a funny one. It's all about energy. If you walk into a room and the room feels off or the people feel off, that can set you off. If the room is very small. I know which casting directors I should go to, because the place is conducive to doing a good job and the people are conducive and I know the other ones aren't, in which case I send in a tape.

Onstage, you just have to tell the absolute truth about the character you are playing. You hope you communicate it, and you hope it comes back like a tennis ball. If you're listening to the sound of your own voice, nobody else is. The audience knows, and they freeze on you.

I wanted to be an actor to act, and now, being an actor, you have to dress up, you have to be nice, you have to be smart, you have to be sexy, you have to be ready.

I started lip-synching with "Losing My Religion." There were a few horrendous mistakes we made, but I own those mistakes. I'm embarrassed by them. I always say when I look back at anything I've ever done, it's with equal dollops of humiliation and triumphant glory.

I've done quite a few movies, I generally can feel that I'm not right for the role or a general fear if I can pull it off, and him giving that "tag" so to speak gave me the confidence. Like that Miles Davis line, "Don't worry about mistakes, there aren't any." Once you are the part, you're the guy, so you can't not be the guy because you're it.

A lot of times, in film and TV, they just want you to play yourself. But, when you're someone who's more of a character actor, you get to experience what it feels like to play a bunch of different kinds of people. I find it more invigorating than challenging. I definitely trust the writers to give me the material that I will take and turn into the person that I'm playing.

(Acting) is an extension of life. How you're capable of performing in your life, that's how you're capable of performing on screen.

The fact that I'd never really seen myself on screen allowed for a blissful ignorance. It didn't feel like a movie. I didn't have that self-consciousness. It was a game that I was playing.