Willow Shields Quotes

Working with Adrien Brody was like going to Julliard, but instead of four years, I went for four weeks. He was like the Albert Einstein of professors, it was just the best experience of my life. Adrien was the most influential mentor in my acting career thus far, and even after the movie he continues to mentor me.

I learned more about acting from George Stevens in a few months than I had in my entire life up until then.

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

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 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.

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

Jeff Bridges taught me a lot about how to keep a scene fresh.

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.

I had an acting coach while I was doing the show and every week I could see my work improving. I really liked working on the show because I was learning new things every day.

I don't think it's necessary to be an actor to get great performances out of an actor. But I do think it helps me as a director because I know what I like as an actor, and I try to get that to the actors who I'm working with.

'Hollyoaks' is where I learnt a lot of the craft, being in front of a camera six days a week. That's certainly an experience you don't get in drama school. It invites you to be comfortable in front of the camera.

I don't usually direct actors in the classic sense of that word. Instead, I try to remind the characters before the shoot what's going on in a very simple way. I then watch them, their inventions as actors, approving or not approving what they're doing.

I've had probably way too many acting classes, and you try to sort of shed - I think over a period of time, you'll shed what doesn't stick with you, and you'll hang onto those things that do.

My acting coach makes the impossible accessible.

I learned one thing from De Niro: He taught me to listen. Nobody says anything strictly from the script. It's improvised. It was the best piece of advice I have ever gotten in my life. It has helped me through the past thirty years.

As an actor, I still don't really know exactly what I am doing most of the time.

I consider myself an actor that tries to have as many tools as possible in the bag. And I think that includes the method, then of course it includes some improv techniques, and includes all kinds of different things, because you never know when you're going to have to work on something and in what way.

Alan Ball, he's good at challenging his actors, I'll say that.

From an acting standpoint, when I was a kid, I thought I knew everything there was to know. As the years go by, this craft becomes more intensive as I get older. You realize how much more there is to know and to learn, and how much better you can get, if you really work at it.

I love acting classes. I think they're great. It's like working out in the gym. It's a great place to figure out everything that's working and what isn't working.

I had many, many mentors that I worked with. Music teachers, choir directors, directors in summer stock or in regional theater. You know, people I was able to work with repeatedly and learn from who were really sort of appropriate people for me to work with at a given time in my development as an actor.

I think with every part you do, you become a better actor. I've learned from my experiences on that.

I don't know what directing actors is all about apart from just casting well and then shaping their performances a bit, you know.

You have to be very specific on the technical part of the acting.

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.