Rachel Parris Quotes

If you want to be an actor, you need to learn how to act first, even in sketch comedy.

Everything I learned as an actor, I have basically applied to writing.

It is important for an actor to learn how to face a live audience.

I think I can work with any type of actor.

I find acting conservatories really important. I've gone to four different ones, and all of them provided totally different tools for me.

Your primary tools, as an actor, are observation and imagination. You can pretty much get everything you need from that, and you do. It brings back that element of pretend.

You learn an incredible amount doing theatre, not just about to behave.

In theater, you're playing characters. You believe you're somebody else, and you're acting.

You see people in different situations behaving in very different ways. That can only benefit you as an actor.

When you work with actors, what you're hoping to absorb is good ways to be an actor as opposed to how to handle being famous.

I think if you're an actor, then you can work on stage - but if you've never done it before, you're going to have picked up a few things that you're going to need to change when you're working on stage.

The first thing you have to get used to in any kind of acting is the ability to make a fool of yourself. If you haven't learnt how to make a fool of yourself, you shouldn't be on the boards. That's absolutely what it's all about.

My advice has always been to study the craft of acting if you want to be an actor. There are many great schools that teach acting. NYU being one of them.

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

I knew absolutely nothing about acting, and had to be taught everything. Some people are born naturals and know how to walk, talk and hold themselves. I didn't and had to learn everything.

I learned so much about being an actor by being a director. More than I ever thought I would.

I really feel that acting for film and acting for the stage are two different crafts. I think that they share things in common. But I liken it to a painter switching over to photography. There are similar things - you have to be conscious of light and color and form - but it's a whole different medium.

My dad teaches me. He teaches me everything. He's been acting for over 30 years, so he knows a lot.

I'm a comedian who got into movies, so I don't really think of myself as an actor.

I look for things that are going to challenge me as an actor.

I consider myself an actor that tries to have as many tools as possible in the bag. And I think that includes the method, then of course it includes some improv techniques, and includes all kinds of different things, because you never know when you're going to have to work on something and in what way.

I think as an actor you're always learning, you're always trying to experience more things.

I try to be like a sponge when I'm around other actors, picking things up about the way they work and how they do things.

All the training at MGM came to be a great help for me on 'Molly Brown.'

Sometimes you can fall into bad habits on film or rest on your laurels, and you can't do that in theater. I think it's such a useful tool as a person and as an actor to go back and forth between those two mediums.