Ernest Borgnine Quotes

Actors have seven tracks going in their minds: They've got all the research they've done for the part, then they have whatever the director asked them to do, then they've got what the departments like special effects need them to do.

As an actor, you're lucky if you get a month before a project starts. There are times when you get a day before a project starts. So to be able to really sit and inhabit that mind and the story is really beneficial, and it really helps for me to be able to then compartmentalize as we're shooting and detach and go somewhere else.

When you start out on a project as an actor, you know, you approach the character from the standpoint of maybe writing a list - even if it's a mental list that you make - of the adjectives that the character has or that character possesses.

There are two schools of thought: There are those actors who explain to you that they know exactly how they're going to do the part... And then there is the other method, which is to have no method at all. This is mine.

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

I'm not the best actor I can be, so I'm just working on it. I'm not the quickest reader in the world but when I get an acting book I can read it in two days.

I started to see acting as a real science. That really helped me grow as an actor.

Increasingly I've come to think that what's at the core of acting is thinking. Most people would say it's feeling.

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 would go into a place that was quiet and isolated and think about how my character would feel in the situation, considering who he was and what he had been through. I would think about that even up to 30 minutes. And when I felt the character was in my body and I had left, I could walk onto set or into rehearsal.

I'm always trying to improve my skills as an actor. I think it shows in 'El Gringo;' it shows in the new 'Universal Soldier.' You can't rest on your laurels; you've got to keep improving.

I like to rehearse. We did a lot of rehearsals for 'Moneyball,' but it is really individual to the actor. It's not like, 'Here is my process, everybody. Fit in.'

I have to do some mental gymnastics as an actor sometimes, to remember not to let certain things in.

I don't really rehearse, because I don't really step into action until I'm forced to. The only way I prepare is just by memorizing it backward and forward so that when I get in the room, I can become the character and not think about the lines so much.

I liked to carry the script into an audition because, for me, it reminded people that this was not the final performance. I'm still a work in progress.

For me, rehearsal is very important, and I spend a lot of time doing it. Also, I work with my acting teacher for hours and hours before walking onto any set.

I want to do more films because if you do a lot of films, you become a better actor.

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.

I never do any research for my roles.

I am learning the grammar of acting on the sets. And I am happy that way.

I'm not a Method actress. I work in the present, the day-to-day.

Acting is a career where you keep learning with every film you do.

As an actor, you create a character from your understanding of what you have heard and your observations. Eventually, every film is an extension of the images that I have seen or what I have heard or read somewhere.

When I first started acting, I knew that you have to learn different skills for different roles.

As an actor, I believe that acting is actually behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances.