Anna Paquin Quotes

I have a hunger for good roles.

I don't think of myself as an actress. I still think I'm fannying around in my mum's front room.

It's a surprisingly sacrificial job being an actor.

As an actress I take roles I find interesting.

I find talking about acting very boring, having to come out with platitudes about how terribly nice everyone is. I would much rather just do it.

If the actor doesn't feel it's right, that's when you say, 'OK, let's find something else.' It's then that you get the natural moment.

You can't really plan with acting!

I aspire to play interesting characters.

There's acting, and then there's auditioning; mastering auditioning is sort of the first thing an actor really needs to nail down when he or she wants to get a part.

For most of my career, I've played roles that were written for other actresses.

I get very competitive, mostly in acting though. When I'm going out for a role or something, that's when I really get very territorial about things.

I think you have to be careful not to do too much as yourself. Otherwise you stop getting the acting roles, and at the end of the day that's what I love.

Most actors spend a lot of time training themselves to be an actor. And I kind of didn't do that. I just started doin' it in front of an audience and had to deliver.

One was never taught how to begin at drama school. But all it required was one intake of breath.

I have said to my agents, 'I want to work. I want to play character roles.'

Acting to me is always reacting.

I'm more interested in knowing my cues than my lines. If you know what your cues are, then you know what your reaction is going to be to them. Acting is about reacting, and if I can kind of purely react, that's easier for me.

I want to be an actor, and I am being an actor. I'm not ready to run off on a road trip. Yet.

I want to show audiences I can act.

I just want to act. I just want to do the work.

I don't really give much thought to the roles that I'd ideally love to play.

I'm grateful for any opportunity to act.

For me, it's just acting. It's pretending. The best actors are children, and children don't do research. You never see a child going, 'I'm wondering about my motivation here. How can I do this toy? How can I do this train? I don't feel train.'

I'd always dabbled in acting.

I'm an actress. It's my passion. It's - I've always lived for acting.