Owen Wilson Quotes

I like method actors who don't focus on the glamorous side, but on realistic acting.

Every role is approached in exactly the same way, you have to make it believable and that's all. Acting is really serious, like, pretending really hard.

The work for the actor is always the same. We're looking for a human being. We're looking for believable human behavior.

I love acting. I just love it. It's in my bones. I remember when I was a kid, I watched an interview with Dennis Hopper talking about Jimmy Dean on the set of Rebel Without A Cause. Jimmy said to him, "If you've got to cry in a scene, you've got to cry. Make it real." And that's all that I believe in.

As an actor, I function from a place of compassion and empathy - you have to believe 100 percent what your character is doing, because otherwise it will look like it's not real.

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.

Make acting seem real and as if it weren't acting. Just make it real.

The most fun you can possibly have as an actor is to walk that line between what's real and what's interesting.

That's the thing about acting - you can't fake it.

You have to believe that you are the character or the thing or whatever the hell you're playing.

Acting is trying to be absolutely truthful; to get audiences to believe that you are a dean, when, actually, not only are you not the dean, but if you walked into the building they'd probably throw you out. That's very hard.

As much as I know people love the method and what you can draw out of yourself, a lot of acting is very imaginative.

If I have anything to offer as an actor, it's only my ability to make the person real.

Stanley Kubrick made Shelly Duvall go crazy during 'The Shining.' It's like one of the best performances ever. Maybe he shouldn't have gone that far, but I love that movie.

Acting is not acting. It isn't putting on a face and dancing around in a mask. It's believing that you are that character and playing him as if it were a normal day in the life of that character.

I get very involved in my roles. I want people to think it's all really happening. If I'm in it, I'm in it.

Love scenes feel very mechanical. But our whole job is to make it look real.

Sometimes in entertainment, when people have done the Academy Awards - like, for example, in 'The Bodyguard' - I just didn't believe it; it didn't feel authentic.

I have to say that one person I learned from the most as an actor in my life is Emmy Rossum. She is so insanely talented in the sense that when watching her work, it just turns into watching her speak - it's no longer acting; that's how good she is! She just becomes the person.

I am a natural actor. I try to keep it spontaneous as far as possible. That is my mantra.

The number one job of an actor is to be a character and never let the acting show.

It becomes very easy as an actor to immerse yourself when you're in the real places.

I think a lot about the editing of the films when we're making them, partly because I studied that, and partly because if you think about being in love while you're supposed to be acting in love, there's nowhere to go. You have to focus on something else and then do what's being asked, and you might get some semblance of something interesting.

I always try to find something or some way of delivering the lines or playing the scene that you wouldn't normally expect. And I know that sounds weird, because it's not like I surprise people with shocking performances. But in an interesting way... Just being real and as interesting as possible. Usually, that stuff is the spine of the show. It's the humor that you need in a scene, in an intense moment or something.

The actors make the film. They're the ones that take this theoretical movie that's in your head and make it real. The success of a film is entirely on their shoulders. I admire them, because acting is such a difficult thing to do, and I personally can't understand it.