Sophie Okonedo Quotes

The happiest moments for me, creatively, are doing readings of a play around a table where there's no audience.

I like to remind myself how hard acting is. I do parts in friends' stuff.

People think memorizing lines is hard, when that's the last thing you worry about. You get that done, and then you've got to worry about the internal stuff, which is the challenging part.

I was a theater actor back in the U.K., and you knew the whole play, so you could plot your storyline and character. And then I did 'Lost' and didn't know, and it was kind of frustrating, but I enjoyed it.

The great fun of doing new plays is that people have no idea what's going to happen next. That goes quite soon, as people start talking about it, and the only way you can keep hold of that is genuinely to keep changing it.

It's exciting to do something like this because usually what happens in theater is that, after the first or second reading of a play, it falls apart completely and the rehearsal process is such that you begin to pick up the pieces and put it back together again.

I think sometimes you can think up a story, but it's because you're comfortable doing that, but when you're an actor, one of the things that you have to do is take yourself out of your comfort zone.

Good actors can tell you more about your play than 1,000 hours alone at your desk.

I really miss the rehearsal process of theater.

In the theater, when people hear that you're writing a play, they want to know what it's all about, whether there's a role for them. You write it fairly quickly, and it becomes a group activity before you're really ready to have company.

I think sometimes I'm more fond of doing the research for the character because you learn so much. Sometimes shooting is really difficult because you wake up early and you're always hurrying. And sometimes I don't know what I'm doing. I'm here and there.

When you work as an actor, you've got to feel safe even in what appears to be the simplest things.

When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression.

You know, I've never been much of a method actor. I feel like, with every project I go in extremely prepared and I like to have a good time.

What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.

Acting is a strange job because your control is very limited.

It's very hard when you're doing a new play that you believe in, and you want to tell the story in the best way possible.

The first time I thought I should be an actor was in school. I thought, 'At least this is something for which I won't have to study.' But I've realised that an actor needs to be constantly unsure about what he's doing and about what's going on around him. The moment you think you've nailed it, you're dead.

Thankfully, I have a background as an actor, and you learn how to live in that world of not knowing what's going to happen next.

Mostly I work really unconsciously, and I think if the scenes are really well written, which they are, and if I just throw myself into it, I don't really think about it.

I can't act, and so I have to live that particular character in my real life and then exhibit it on screen.

Acting, at least for me, is very unreal, and when I'm doing it, I actually feel embarrassed.

I love writing plays because they are living, fluid things that are energised by the producer, designers, musicians, actors and audience.

You work on a play or movie, you have the whole script, so you're constructing a performance based on the bible that you have. In TV, you don't, so to actually invest in that and let that be the exciting part is terrifying and certainly leaves room for mistakes, looking back.

As an actor, being on autopilot is the worst thing possible.