Jurnee Smollett Quotes

Basically, the way you get into any role is just doing research on the type of character you're playing.

If you're playing a real person, then you want to do a certain amount of research, but that's only going to be so useful to you. Each role requires a different kind of approach to get ready.

I don't like when actors go around and talk a ton about how they approach their roles, because it's a little like pulling the curtain back on Oz, for me.

I'm not a Method actor. I don't believe acting should be psychodrama. I look within myself and see what I can find to play the role with. If I'm playing a blind man, I don't go around blindfolded for days. A lot of good actors would, but I don't go in for that very much. I like to just make it up as I go along.

I wouldn't say I'm a method actor. I do research when I feel I don't have enough experience for the part I'm playing.

I always tend to see, right after reading the script, the character and how I want to play it. I guess that's sort of most of the work, preparing for the role, but almost the creation of the character seems to go on as I read through the script.

When I research a role it does get a little crazy and maybe even a little stupid.

You try to get to know your character as best as you can before you start filming - what's written and not written.

When I get a role, I try to delve as deeply as possible into the character.

A performer needs to feel the part to be the part!

If I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance.

I played a lawyer once, and I had about three or four weeks before we shot, so I was able to go to court and watch lawyers at work. Some were good lawyers and some were bad lawyers, but it was essential. The more time you have to prepare, the better. Always.

In theater, you go in-depth with your character, so coming to the States, it was inevitable to dig into the pilots I liked. I knew what characters I was going to be reading for, so I would dissect them and really get involved with them.

I'm not a booky actor, I don't go away and do loads of reading up on a part, generally. I'm more interested in what the people we're portraying do physically, and looking at their sentence construction.

Part of an actor's job is to find correlations between your own life and the life of the person you are playing.

I like, for instance, 'Serpico.' I enjoyed playing Serpico because Frank Serpico was there. He existed. He was a real life person and I could - I could embody him. I could, you know, I could work and get to know him and have him help me with the text, the script and become him. It's almost like a painter having a model to become.

I don't shoot two films at the same time. I finish one character and get into another character because I change my look for every film. It's difficult, but I enjoy doing that.

I once did a role which I couldn't rehearse in my street clothes, I had to have the character's costume on before I could rehearse it. I just couldn't think as the character unless I looked like him, or I knew that I looked like him.

I make out a play list for every character and buy the records they would listen to; it helps me find their personas. What they play, where they stay, who they lay, is my matrix for character development.

I'm such a carnivorous researcher as an actor - I chew it up like it's meat, and I really don't know how to do that without the people that are producing or creating or writing that which they want me to chew up.

As an actor, when you want to capture the spirit of the character, and the character exists in all of the iterations slightly differently, you work towards getting a sense of what the creators wanted to do, you know? Then, you work off of that.

For better or worse, I don't necessarily categorize myself as a method actor; I'm not going to make claims that I stayed in character 24/7.

I empty myself out and fill myself with the character. I would play a devil worshipper, and I would fill myself up with whatever devil worshippers believe. Then, as myself, I empty that out and become Nelsan.

I never do any research for my roles.

A character like Baahubali required a preparation that I had to undergo mentally and physically - from undertaking a strict routine and a lifestyle, which helped me become the character physically, to knowing the character's depth and a lot more.