Andrew J. West Quotes

In acting class, you're trained to express yourself as much as you can.

For me, acting is a series of impressions rather than trying to find one line through to the end, which risks becoming more of a presentation.

Acting is kind of difficult to intellectualize - it's a far more visceral experience. It's really hard to be able to think about and then employ these kind of esoteric notions of this person's backstory and try to weave it in somehow. It's just kind of impossible.

I really admire actors who have time, because time is really the greatest luxury for an actor to live with a character, to develop a walk and a talk, or to listen to tape if you're playing a real character. But without time you're really just forced to make quick choices and move on and hope that the spaghetti sticks against the wall.

I guess I'm probably a Method actor; I don't know... I just think of it as staying in the zone.

Well, I think one of the main things that you have to think about when acting in the movies is to try not to make the acting show.

I do whatever I need to do to get into character. Sometimes it's being incredibly quiet, and sometimes it's being loose and goofy.

When preparing a role, I work first on the body language and physical aspects of the performance; the psychological dimension comes naturally once I'm in character.

I'm not a method actor; I hope you know that!

I don't really prepare for each role the same way.

I'm not what you'd call a Method actor.

First of all, the actor needs to get out of the character's way. You follow the character without judgment or prejudice or preconceived ideas.

Acting is a bigger step into modelling in a way. Modelling is easier when you don't look like yourself. When you look like a different person, you feel different. Acting goes deeper into that; you have to move and talk like that character. I love it.

There's a lot of romanticisation of the intuitive actor and method acting and all kinds of notions about getting inside a character and coming out from there.

I'm not a booky actor, I don't go away and do loads of reading up on a part, generally. I'm more interested in what the people we're portraying do physically, and looking at their sentence construction.

I was a student of Stella Adler and then later Lee Strasberg, and they were into sensory work. At its best, acting is not about words - even when the words are important.

I try to create as many circumstances outside of set that help me fall into character when I get onto set.

Acting is really about showing up that day and telling the writers what you feel like saying.

There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination.

I'm a task-oriented actor. A pretender. And I try to invent my process anew each time I make a new project. So I frown on any method.

A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.

I'm always practicing lines, researching, trying to be fresh, and fully trying to become the characters I play. That's how I roll.

But the throat just kind of falls into line once you realize in your head what it is. You got to remember the musicality of a character you're going to do.

Acting is somewhat mysteriously taught. There are so many different methods and systems and processes for teaching acting because it will always be an elusive art-form.

I'm a Method actor. I spent years training for the drinking and carousing I had to do in this film.