Gillian Jacobs Quotes

Improv definitely made me a better auditioner, without a doubt. We did do an audition semester in grad school, and that was helpful for those times that you have a script and you have a few days to prepare it, to really work on sides. But the auditions I was doing in New York, if you got it the night before, you were very lucky.

So, I certainly subscribe to what Bette said about acting being very hard work.

In order to be a good actor, I'm a firm believer that you need to bring something to the table.

Any acting job that I ever got, I always treated it like I was a neophyte; I didn't know what I was doing, and I was going to work just as hard as I do on my stand-up.

I think one of the mistakes actors make is we're so focused on what we're going to say.

As an actor, being on autopilot is the worst thing possible.

I took theatre and stuff in college, then I took a bunch of different acting classes here in L.A. Sometimes when I have a hard audition, I'll call my acting coach and he'll come help me. I actually get more nervous in acting class than I do at an actual audition. It's actually a really great way to get over your nerves.

As an actor, I have these tics that I don't even know exist.

As an actor, I trust my ear.

Ryerson helped me because I was around acting all the time. It was pretty much all I thought about, even if I didn't really get to practice every day; I definitely thought about it. Actually a lot of it was just sitting and watching, especially in my last year, but I think a good actor learns from everything.

I think in any form of acting, you're always well served if you've done theater.

When you work as an actor, you've got to feel safe even in what appears to be the simplest things.

As an actor, I've grown considerably. It's taken me years to get comfortable doing a romantic scene and dancing on stage in front of a live audience. I've really opened up a lot.

My acting coach I've got here, Richard Lawson, he's been doing good, just telling me to calm down sometimes and just be me.

I'm not going to get better as an actor working on bad stuff.

Comedians work great as actors because they're good under pressure. With a lot of actors, you have to make them feel like everything's going really well to get a good performance out of them. But, if you have a comedian on the set, you can tell them, 'Hey, you really are screwing this up,' and then they just get better.

I'm not the best actor I can be, so I'm just working on it. I'm not the quickest reader in the world but when I get an acting book I can read it in two days.

You know, I've never been much of a method actor. I feel like, with every project I go in extremely prepared and I like to have a good time.

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

Personally, I need to learn every word on the page before I go in and audition. I have not mastered the skill of holding pages in my hand and acting with pages in my hand. I find that every time I have to look at the page it takes me completely out of the scene.

If the script's good, everything you need is in there. I just try and feel it, and do it honestly. I also don't learn things for auditions, because I feel like it's just a test of memorizing rather than being real. Maybe every other actor would think that was terrible, I don't know. But it seems to have worked for me, so far.

It's hard enough to just be a good actor. When you're on set, there's everything going against you. There are walkie talkies going off, the camera is creaking and moving, there are boom mics, and you have to hit your mark and make sure you don't shadow the other person's face. It's a really technical process.

The best way to study to be an actor is to interact genuinely with the people around you and observe and listen.

I don't think I would be a good actor! People enjoyed 'Dancing With the Stars' because I was myself, and every time they told me to say something, I would say my own words, so I don't think I could follow a script well!

As an actor, your life experience is just as important as studying.