Jane Goldman Quotes

Emotions should be real; one shouldn't come across as acting.

A thriller becomes great when it carries a feeling of reality and truth.

I think everything needs to be played real, for reality's sake, for truth. And that is the drama and the comedy. When you do that, it's funnier. And when you do that, you really do hit the emotional beats. I do it the same way as I do a drama. I just play it for truth, and then maybe have a little bit of fun with it sometimes.

It is now only in letters I write what I feel: not in literature any more, and I seldom say it, because I keep trying to be amusing.

Anybody's true nature is bullshit. There is no human soul. Emotion is bullshit. Love is bullshit.

You cannot be in love with love.

As an actor, I need to get excited about something that I can actually relate to.

Feelings are facts. Look straight at 'em and deal with 'em. Work it through, as honestly as you can. If God is anything like a middle-class white chick from the suburbs, which I admit is a long shot, it's what you do about what you feel that matters.

When you do your comedy and your drama, your acting style doesn't change. If it's a comedy, the situations and the characters might be a little funnier, but you're just trying to be honest.

The hardest thing for me to do, and the best thing I've done and learned as an actor is to sacrifice being funny in certain circumstances in order to do something that makes sense for the story or the character, or emotionally.

A lot of people that are always trying to be funny and "on" and performing are just hiding. It's just a cover for what they really are and how they really feel.

Seems," madam? Nay, it is; I know not "seems." 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

You try to make characters you care about, and I think realism helps. Even though this is a high concept, the characters have got to be real.

I cry at the end of every episode of "Girls." I'm just so overwhelmed by the truthfulness with which [Lena Dunham] conveys human nature.

Now smile a real smile for me so I know you're not suffering inside.

There is a difference, of course, between real sentiment and the trash of shared experience.

When I was young I used to sit in the cinema thinking wouldn't it be great if you could have a film in which the characters were like real people instead of being like actors.

I knew it was going to be important that if I had an audience understand who she was, then all those things had to come from a place that was grounded, as opposed to being tics and manners and twitches. I didn't think it was going to be as rich, perhaps, as if I was going to make it more emotional.

I think a large part of an actor's job in preparation is just making the words feel organic to them, and obviously they came out of me, so they felt organic to me already. And then I think then it was all about clearing away all the other voices.

I can't cry on demand. I need to feel what I'm feeling. I can't just say, 'Give me a moment' and then cry.

I guess I've just gotten to the point where I don't want to be bored by the characters that I play, and I don't want to feel like I'm having to make something more interesting or I'm having to force something that's not really there on the page.

My fun as an actor and my task as an actor is to transform myself to become other people. I enjoy becoming characters but I don't enjoy becoming caricatures. The research I do is only necessary in so far as we move into other dimensions.

Having an authentic emotional response is always a positive thing.

For me to get the support and the love and response we did from critics, but to also be at Trader Joe's and have women come up to me and cry and hug me is on another level. That makes you take a step back because there are genuine emotions at stake. People were truly on a journey with her. This story opened up week by week like a flower. It was just a magical season, and I'm so happy I got to do it.

Now I like to think that I'm in my character's head so much that I don't have to substitute. I'm in the moment; I'm living in the moment. And if it's genuine, it's real, and if it comes out it comes out.