Michael Jackson Quotes

Don't forget there are two sides to performing. Finding the truth, but you also have to be transparent enough for the audience to see it. How many times have you seen a performance and thought: 'Well, it seems to be meaning a great deal to you but it ain't coming across to me?' It is to be shared.

I remember Julianne Moore talking about acting and she said, "I'm just looking for truth. When people watch, they're not looking to see me. They're looking to see themselves." That's one of my new favorite sayings

Acting is all about truth and honesty, and the sensitivity that's capable of transporting you.

As an actor, your main goal is to tell the truth.

I think people enjoy "The Lobster" because people respond to original things, but I think they only respond to original things if they connect to some truths within us.

I know that I've had a very fortunate life, but also I think my job as an actor is to connect emotionally to human beings.

At a certain age you start becoming brave enough to reveal yourself and it's the revealing of who you are that enables you to dig deeper into different characters. You'll get to a point where you can say: 'I can relate to that', 'I know that', 'I don't have to make that up' and that resonates with people in the audience who can tell that you've been there.

I'm no actor and I never have been. What people see on the screen is me.

On some level in acting, what you're trying to find is truth, because when it's true is when it's also funny.

Even when you are playing someone who is real, you get their mannerisms and you get their little quirks, but, it still has to be something inside of you that connects with the role, or else you will not be any good.

Action is drama. If we cannot make the audience laugh, smile or cry with us, we are not actors.

I'm not saying that I am all of my characters, but for me to bring a character to life, you've got to be able to find your own truth.

People see truth in my films. That's what they react to, and that's what they relate to.

It's challenging to take on something else that is not you and make it very real and have others be able to associate with it. It's wonderful to provoke thought.

The real actor has a direct line to the collective heart.

You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.

Acting is all about finding the truth within whatever world you're in.

Good actors can sort of see into people and immediately you have a chemistry with them or not. It's like an affair with no mess.

I'm looking for the truth. The audience doesn't come to see you, they come to see themselves.

It would be hard to play a character you don't like - for me anyway - or can't find something in them to like.

All I needed to do was sing with conviction, speaking my truth from the heart, honestly and straightforwardly, and to offer my words, ideas and music to the audience as if it were one collective friend that I'd known for a very long time.

Because I'm highly empathetic, it's easy for me to put myself in the character's shoes. It's, you know, finding the truth of the moment.

I like making people feel things. Acting doesn't seem like lying but like storytelling.

To be a comic, you must reveal yourself in your most grotesque nudity. And it's only then, when the truth gets told, when the audience recognizes it somewhere in themselves, that they get that great medicine of laughter.

Part of acting is always just being available emotionally and open to people.