Brian Dennehy Quotes

Even when I do roles that are really profoundly abusive, like, I would say, in 'Deadwood' - there's a guy who's a breeding ground for ignorance and hurtful behavior - the fact that people are so taken aback by that is a good thing because they're looking at themselves, and there's a part of me in there, too.

The ideal way to approach a character is to find something in yourself that relates in some way.

Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.

If I'm doing my job as an actor, the audience knows everything I know about the character.

In my acting, I have tried to do this - to present to audiences a living creature in whom they can recognise themselves or someone they know.

I think that there's a hidden darkness in all of us!

I don't think I can play a role without falling in love with something about her; even the most despicable people who I have portrayed had some aspect of them which I found beautiful.

You have to love the guy that you play, even if you play the villain, you've got to love him.

Somehow I find it easier to inhabit characters if they are a little bit pathetic. I do seem to have an affinity with pathetic people.

I'm interested in the human more than I'm interested in building suspense.

I don't even draw on my life experiences when I'm acting. I just try and make it feel like I'm living through that person's skin.

When you are playing someone who is dealing with issues on a really personal level, if you don't bring your own issues into the equation, it's not going to feel really personal to the people watching it.

I am sorry that as leader of the community, San Antonio and my name go together. But I guess human beings just aren't made of plastic and wiring and metal. They are made of flesh and blood and feelings.

I try genuinely, when I'm playing a character, to not judge them and just to inhabit someone as how one sees them. That being said, you also want to make sure that you don't blur the edges of people too much because humans are naughty and complicated beings.

As an actor, you can't just imitate someone. You have to get under her skin.

Those things that we probably are ashamed of as human beings, certain things that no one would ever talk about - as actors, when we transform into a character, we empathize with those moments.

If you operate under the premise that everybody already has some experiences that could be sources of empathy for them, I wonder if there's some process of coaxing people into tapping into that knowledge.

Once you're playing someone, you shouldn't be judging them in any way. That's what being an actor is - it's having empathy for people that are different from yourself. Once you've committed to that person, your responsibility is to tell that story.

I try and find a way to love every character I play.

I'm mostly interested in characters and how they manifest themselves in their relationships. I'm delighted that people relate to the characters in 'Bojack,' and hopefully they will too to the characters in 'Undone.' If they understand themselves or feel seen in a new way, I think that's a wonderful thing.

Any actor would love to just pick up a script and be like, 'I can connect to this person, and I can see myself playing him.'

Every single character I've ever played has a little bit of me in them just because every single human in the world has a little bit of everything in them.

And that's the case with all of James McMurtry's songs. He never presents these characters for us to judge, but only to sympathize with. He has a capacity for compassion with every sketch that he makes with a person that he is not.

We will always need to be reminded that we are human. Art gives us that.

Good characters don't believe they're bad. As long as you as an actor believe in them and try to understand them, it's not hard to have empathy and sympathy.