Ian McDiarmid Quotes

I like to do things in which I'm playing someone else entirely.

I think there are two sides of the coin. On one hand, it can be challenging to access different parts of yourself, and you kind of have to put yourself back into reality when you're done with the job. But I think it's also really cool to have the ability to try on being different people and to explore some parts of yourself because you get to know yourself better. You get to know parts of yourself that you haven't met before. I think that's something that I've been learning more recently.

Being an actor, imitating to the point of inhabiting the lives of others, may simply be a way of continuing to do what I learned to do as a boy - to travel, mentally and physically.

What acting offered me was the chance to be many other people.

What's nice about acting is that you're not just left with yourself all the time, but you get to see the world through so many different people's eyes.

That's the joy of acting - you get to play people who are not you; you get to explore the dark, hidden sides of yourself.

I write because I have always been curious about what it would feel like to be someone else, in a different situation. Fiction is a wonderful way of exploring that.

I love getting to be someone else, to explore the parts of myself and other people that we may keep locked away or have no idea exist within us. I also love starting new projects because I always walk away with such a wonderful new group of friends.

I don't think there's a certain part of a character I take with me. There's a certain part of me I leave with each character, though.

Acting gives me a chance to be people I will never be, in real life. I like changing who I am.

One of the great things about being an actor is that you do get to indulge in someone else's life.

Trying different things is very important to me. I see people and want to wear their clothes and drive in their cars for awhile. That's probably one reason I became an actor.

I love disappearing. That's what acting is. For me it's about putting on a persona, stepping into a pair of shoes. It's my face, but I'm using it as a tool for that spirit, that character.

The reason you want to act is to continue to explore every different part of the human psyche.

It's a lot of fun to play someone you don't normally think of yourself as.

We are already so many things by the time we reach the middle of life that it is possible to see that really anything can happen, and that, by extension, anything is doable. I decided I'd write 'The Calling' as someone else. Another writer entirely, a fictional one who would be played by me.

The idea of transformation - playing something I'm not - is the bit I enjoy most about acting.

After I play every character, I always walk away and feel a little different. I've experienced something that's not my life, but I've made it my life.

When you sit at your desk, if you're lucky, there's a moment when you feel empowered to be someone or something else, to leap into another skin.

You have to find out how to become the character.

I want to continue to play characters that are not like me at all, and transform.

One of the fun things about being an actor is stepping outside yourself and outside of your own experience. It's challenging yourself to totally commit to something that in your core is so wrong.

I love escaping into character. It's a chance to try on people that you wouldn't be brave or stupid enough to be in real life.

I love creating characters and becoming someone else entirely.

I love to act because I love trying on other people's skin.