Pamela Adlon Quotes

Stripping away artifice - it's the constant standard I aim for in acting, to approximate life. People talk about being bigger than life - but there's nothing bigger than life.

I've always been taught to just play the truth of the situation. If comedy comes out of that, or drama, whatever comes out of it, at least I'm playing the truth of the moment-to-moment reality.

One of the traditions of film acting is a sort of mumbled realism. Be minimal, and do less. 'Even less than that.'

I keep in touch with what's real.

I always want to bring emotion across in a straightforward way. I don't want to get histrionic when I'm singing. For me that's just not interesting; it goes too far down one road.

Acting is the art of being and existing, and not being fake.

Acting means nothing unless it's truth. And honesty.

I've never been one of those to kind of like, 'I want somebody to do something against their nature to titillate me.' That never holds any interest. And I always want people to be who they are and if they're being not who they are I feel like it's false and, therefore, less easy to connect to. I don't need them to kiss or to display physical intimacy. I think that almost becomes too obvious. I love playing in the suggestive.

I'm always the "less is more" guy when it comes to a scene. So I'ma be the one who will keep it grounded. Even if I let it go off and go crazy, I'm still the voice of keeping things grounded in reality.

I don't believe in dressing up reality. I don't believe in using makeup to make things look smoother.

On some level in acting, what you're trying to find is truth, because when it's true is when it's also funny.

The art of acting is not to act. Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact is bad acting.

You don't need to over-dramatise life, you can just reflect it. It's more interesting, in a way, if it appears to ring true.

I really realize the more movies I do just how important - it's so cliche when people say it, because everybody says it nowadays - but it's so important to keep it grounded. I totally understand what that means.

I love when a scene can almost be boring because it's so honest, you know.

I always go back to how people behave. If you watch how people actually behave in a situation, it's very simple and honest and contained. You don't need to use as much expression, as much feeling. Some characters will boil over, and that's another thing, but a lot of times I think you can just do very, very little.

I think little things are more powerful because they're more honest, so people feel them more strongly.

I know what I like in other actors: truth. That's the best. It makes you say, 'OK, I'll go with you on this.'

A lot of people think theatre must be much harder work than film, but anything histrionic or superfluous gets seen on camera so you have to work to distil it into a complete sense of what's true.

I think that if you can convey a kind of a complexity, a mystery, a truth in stillness, that, to me, is really worth striving for, and I totally agree with Michael Fassbender in that less is more. If it's going on inside you, the camera will find it.

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 feel strongly that I need to try to make my shows as real as possible. What you see is what you get.

The thing about television is that you can't fake it. Your sense of discovery must be genuine; you can't pretend to be surprised.

The most important thing in acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

That's the thing about acting - you can't fake it.