Kate Winslet Quotes

That's what acting is - it's about... having the courage to allow your audience into the private moments of your characters' lives.

Some actors get by with behaving, not acting. You've got to sell the effect. I act more in the 'Nightmare' movies because it's not like me. I'm acting, not reacting.

If you can just actually let the character be for a bit, then you get the right sense.

Good actors, you always know what they're thinking. That's why they're good actors.

If I had to say the secret recipe for acting melodrama, I think it comes from myself in real life. I have a belief that when I do melo scenes, I try to make them less cheesy.

If it's a 50-seat theater, I am neurotic about whether I'm doing an honest performance. Sometimes I walk away happy enough with it. You know, it can always be better, but sometimes I'll walk away distraught, feeling like I missed the pulse of the character that evening.

Feeling and reacting has more impact than just trying to emote what your character's saying.

An actor's job is to find variations of the same emotion in his being so that every time he expresses grief or joy, it doesn't look the same.

I really feel our job as actors is to find a human experience in the character. So, for me, genre comes second; it's about script and the emotional journey of that character. Genre definitely has an impact, but it has more of an impact on the way the character is expressed. We all have the same core emotions of love, jealousy, rage - it's just how they're expressed.

Emotional power is maybe the most valuable thing that an actor can have.

I'm certainly not one of those actors who remain in a dark place the entire time in order to be doing the scene. I sort of come in and out of it. It can be to the detriment of my performance sometimes!

An emotional performance is usually more instinctive to an actor.

If you start to disrespect the character you're playing, or play it too much for laughs, that can work for a sketch, it will sell some gags, but it's all technique. It's like watching a juggler - you can be impressed by it, but it's not going to touch you in any way.

With big, emotional roles it's very easy, especially if you've grown up in the American school of acting, to exploit your own pain. You have to be careful about that, because 9 times out of 10, your pain is not appropriate to the character.

Actors are pretending for you, but they're not lying. They are not putting on a guise instead of themselves. They are finding things inside that they have experienced.

Good acting comes from finding the essence of a character.

An actor matures with experiences, and the more the emotions he/she has been through, the greater the intensity of performances.

I have just gained a deeper and deeper respect for acting and the whole art of it because you're really trying to live a life and to do the best justification for it.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable. You must reach the emotional and intellectual level of ability where you can go out stark naked, emotionally, in front of an audience.

With film, it's all about the actor being able to feel the things that the character's feeling. It must do some strange things to your mind. Music I find much easier because you're being honest about where you are as a person.

I don't mind a little Sturm und Drang. When I was doing 'Riding in Cars With Boys,' I wouldn't smile at anybody, because my character, Bev, was angry at the world. I'm the opposite. Inside my head I'd be like, God, I'll explain to you at the end of shooting that I'm not this person.

The nuances and organic characteristics of a character become second nature if I'm doing my job well.

In day-to-day life, our brain sends lots of signals. In acting, there are no signals. You have to believe in what you are trying to portray.

You take what you know, and you put it through your own prism. If I play characters that break down or cry, it's Gary Oldman crying; it's not the character crying.

Obviously an actor draws on his own experience.