Cuba Gooding Jr. Quotes

When I act, a part of me goes into the character I am playing.

You hear stories of intense actors who can't shed their character and who don't know who they are for a week or two after. I'm not that guy, man.

I've never been a method actress; I've never been that person that wants to imagine horrible things happening in your own life in order to exploit them for your emotional being in the movie. I'm just not good at doing that.

Actors who say they can dive inside a character are either schizophrenic or lying.

I don't approach my character in a set pattern. I want to get into the skin of the character. I don't love Manoj Bajpayee; I love all my characters. And that is why people today remember all my roles.

I'm certainly not one of those actors who remain in a dark place the entire time in order to be doing the scene. I sort of come in and out of it. It can be to the detriment of my performance sometimes!

As an actor, I think it's always important to separate yourself from your characters because, when you include yourself in a character, you're taking a liberty that you don't really have unless you're life is that incredibly close to the character.

What makes an actor, I think, is a combination of a deep curiosity about life and a case of the crazies.

I do whatever I need to do to get into character. Sometimes it's being incredibly quiet, and sometimes it's being loose and goofy.

I never act my characters - I am them.

I have these surreal moments where I'm like, 'I'm pregnant with Jake Gyllenhaal's baby' and 'I'm telling Robert Pattinson that he smells of sex.' But you're acting, so the focus is on the work.

I'm an emotional actor. When I'm doing a scene, I really believe it. I live the part as long as I'm in the scene.

With films, you completely immerse yourself in a character, get into who they are, live it and then release it.

A lot of male actors are method actors and they become the characters which they both were.

I try to allow the spirit of the character to live through me. That's the only way I know how to approach acting. I have to live it.

The beautiful thing about acting is that you can just dive into the character, strip yourself of everything, and just get in there and perfect your craft.

I never thought of acting as a creative process. Christ, I used to go to the movies and see Brando talking like he was trying to sell shoes, and he was great. I thought anybody could do it. Then I tried it, and I got so uptight, I'm limited as to what I can do on film.

I don't believe actors who say they don't bleed into their characters. It's absolutely impossible not to.

I'm really not livable with when I'm rehearsing because I'm living the character.

You have to be completely in the character, and that's so hard to do. That's why, when they call, 'Cut!,' you often feel yourself shift. Unless you're Daniel Day Lewis, who stays in character all the time, there's a switch that happens.

I immerse myself right into my character whether or not I'm relating to people live as an actor on stage or whatever.

In terms of jumping into a character's skin, I try to immerse myself in the role as much as possible to bring me closer to them. All I do is what's required to achieve what I want to achieve.

A strange thing happens to me that I'm sure happens to a lot of actors when the camera starts rolling. I'm not 'me' any more.

When I'm acting, it's like I am the character - no one can talk to me. But I'm not so method I'd sell my house and live on the street to play a tramp.

I've always done method acting. I'm a method actor, and I've done that for years. I never did acting and decided to take it seriously because all the parts people want me to do were playing the pretty role. If I want to play someone pretty, I'll play myself.