Grant Bowler Quotes

All the time that I'm acting with an animated character, I'm looking at a tennis ball or sticky tape or an eyeline or a man in a green suit. There's no real environment, just this electric green that's blaring into your brain.

Mo-cap work is less technical than you'd expect. Once you have it all set up you're free to do the whole scene in one take rather than doing a lot of different shots and different takes like you do in a movie. You've got that one go at it and you've got a lot of freedom. You can really express yourself - more like doing theatre than doing a movie.

I really feel that the talent I have is acting. Freedom and the possibility of play-that is what I like to have.

What's happened with computer technology is perfectly timed for someone with my set of skills. I tell stories with pictures. What I love about CGI is that if I can think it, it can be put on the screen.

Computers don't create computer animation any more than a pencil creates pencil animation. What creates computer animation is the artist.

You have to always physicalize, when you do animation recording. Otherwise, you won't get the performance right.

I would love to do some motion capture work just to be able to challenge myself.

ILM was the first company that I had worked at that had a computer-graphics division.

I don't even know how computer animation works, honestly, and I don't need to.

I'm always keen to use my body in my work, so I'm looking forward to the motion capture for Smaug. Both Gollum and King Kong were primates, whereas I'm playing a serpent, so it'll be interesting - I'll have to tie my legs together, possibly, or else they'll be kind of splayed out to the side as a reptile's should be.

There's times when I'm really shy, so these roles that I get to play, they're how I would love to really be. And that's why I love doing stand-up, because it gives me the freedom to say what I really want to say. I think that's why it's my favorite thing to do.

I think acting is totally conducive to being a little kid, because kids are less inhibited and use their imagination.

One of the interesting things about motion capture technology is kind of how it's all put together. The idea is to make it as much a "normal" acting experience as possible and then being able to do all these amazing technical things with it afterwards.

I think if you're doing a play, you're rehearsing enough that you get to a point where it's freeing again. But in a movie, if you rehearse too much, now you've just shown everybody what you're going to do. And any element of surprise or impulsiveness is taken away.

Performers love to perform - that's the thing that we do. I think one of the best things was being able to imagine anything that I wanted, anything that I came up with we could do, because this theater is unbelievable.

I think in every character there are aspects of yourself that you bring to it. But then it would be really boring to just play yourself.

I've been working in computer animation for 25 years. I'm obviously a devotee of the technology. I just think it's the one aspect of the medium that's going to continue to revolutionize the filmmaking. It's constantly changing and it's constantly opening up new possibilities. The technology is evolving where 2-D animation was ultimately limited by how long you could pay how many people to make a movie. I mean computers, not that it's in anyway a labor saving device, but it promises to open up exciting new technical possibilites.

Animation has always been about technology. You can't have animation without technology.

The beauty of the unexpected and unknown, and it's certainly very tantalizing for me as an actor. Other actors can't deal with that; they want to know, but then they make choices and decisions with that knowledge because that knowledge gives them forethought, and they can think about how they want to play something that takes away spontaneity of what they could be doing.

When I see an amazing play or movie, it inspires me as an actress and a filmmaker.

It's so incredible when you meet somebody who comes up and passionately tells you how much they liked you in a movie, or how much they liked thamovie. That's a great thing, because I know what I get out of watching a great movie. So I love what I do, but it's more - I don't think there'd be anybody who would tell you that, even if it's something they love doing, they don't get stressed out by it. I'm a very intense person, so I go very intensely and passionately into what I do.

Maybe it's wishful thinking, this snaggly faith of mine, or maybe it's Miles Davis saying, Don't play what's there, play what's not there.

I think we're all actors. There's this friend of mine who's a great drummer, and he said, "I never thought I'd be a drummer, but I got really good at it. I always feel like I'm an actor playing the drums." His real calling was that he was going to be a magician. That's what he felt like he wanted to do. If you decide to act like a journalist, you'll probably be a better journalist than just being a journalist. What you're doing is, you're taking the executive role and stepping outside yourself so that you're able to make more objective decisions.

I think the most fun I ever had was playing King Arthur in Spamalot on the West End.

It gives you more freedom, the digital camera.