Susan Sullivan Quotes

I literally can't talk without moving hands.

When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.

There is this miraculous thing I heard Hugh Grant talking about - the thing about screen acting is that you can read people's thoughts. You are trying to register something inside and usually the eyes in cinema are where you will register that.

I love body language.

Breathing is always key in any character. When you have a character with no voice, that makes it even more important.

Acting is very physical, even when it doesn't appear to be. It's about the arc of your body's language through a film.

I use my hands a lot while acting.

You have to learn to express differently. Whenever I do TV or film, I ask if I can see the shot to see, to see if it's full body or a close-up. That helps me understand how to communicate.

You learn to control every aspect of your muscles, your face, your toes, your fingernails. And that is how you tell a story, through movement.

Acting coaches in Hollywood were always telling me to use my hands and body more. But that was never me. I just breathe and sometimes it doesn't look as if I'm doing that.

When you perform, you can convey emotions differently, and your look can reflect each of those emotions.

I make a lot of expressions constantly. I'm animated.

An actor's body should be full of emotions, whether it is happiness or sorrow, pain or joy, enraged or elated.

The best way to show an emotion is not through a character's words, but their smallest expressions - to take what an actor would visually do and try putting that down on the page for the reader to 'see.'

The movements which I make I cannot possibly repress because, at the time, I am actually the idea I am interpreting, and naturally I picture my players and auditors as in accord with me. I know, of course, that my mannerisms have been widely discussed.

Body language is essential for an actress, even if you don't use your body in an athletic way. Just to be free, to use it like your voice. A body can be small and have incredible violence. A body talks.

I think you can actually express a lot more in ways without words.

It's a good challenge as an actor to express feelings without saying too many words.

Before you get into the mind, you have to inhabit the physicality. Body language is a great way of speaking.

When someone is suffering, you have to see this in the body and the face. I say all the time that actors use their bodies like objects of war.

I realised how important it is to have your body movement, your diction, tonality, dialogue delivery and to be in rhythm because everything is musical.

I love communicating non-verbally. I find great value in it.

I trained to become a sign-language interpreter because it helps you read physical expression and the emotions of body language.

When I watch an actress say a line, I watch how they deliver the lines with gestures.

The physical language of the body is so much more powerful than words.