Tom Hiddleston Quotes

All my roles are character roles. On the other hand, there are those people who have an inner...I think we all do the same thing. You can't get by on aura alone. That I know. Everyone has to dig in. Everyone has to do the same set of, "What is this about? What is this character doing?" Everybody from Spencer Tracy to Brad Pitt to Jeffrey Tambor.

I'll never approach a part in the same way again. Piaf taught me so much. In terms of my work, I think I'll enjoy it even more than before, because now I know that characters truly exist in their own right. I'll have a way to bring them even more intensely to life.

As an actor you bring some of your own experiences which can make things easier. You build off of it, but your imagination is always the best thing you have as far as creating things I think specifically for what that character is going through. But you're definitely drawing obviously upon things that you can connect to, and then you kind of mold the change that you're making into something that's right for the character.

I think an actor can actually gather moments, memories and emotions for his next character. So, it's a constant work.

An actor will use every piece of information at their disposal, or a good actor will.

I'm certainly not one of those actors who remain in a dark place the entire time in order to be doing the scene. I sort of come in and out of it. It can be to the detriment of my performance sometimes!

I'm not a method actor per se, but if I'm playing a character that, at its core of its persona, has experiences I don't have, I try to search out and get firsthand experiences of similar sorts so I have something to fantasize about.

Good acting comes from finding the essence of a character.

The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings.

Obviously an actor draws on his own experience.

In terms of jumping into a character's skin, I try to immerse myself in the role as much as possible to bring me closer to them. All I do is what's required to achieve what I want to achieve.

As an actor, you want to be able to move your character forward into new ground, but also it's really interesting to go backwards and unpeel those layers and the interesting elements of what your character is and what informs the decisions that you make so that you can have as much meat to work with.

Acting is not just impersonating your character.

I think the secret of great acting is that you have to bring your imagination to the party. You have to have a great imagination and you have to bring it every day when you're working. Your imagination and your skills as an actor are what see you through, not what you're wearing or where you are.

I would never not work on the part without it playing. That's what being an actor is. You use everything that's influenced you to help you get out of yourself or be more creative.

That's my way in the very beginning - how to enter it [a role]. Very quickly in the process, I don't think about voice being separate from the way you hold your head or the way you sit or the way you put on lipstick. It's all a piece of a person, and it's all driven by conviction.

I'm really excited to act again because when I started out, there was an innocent sort of perception of the world that was coming though me, and I think now through a lot of experience and life and understanding, I've come full circle to having a purer response to things. So my craft will be really interesting to work from this place because I think acting is about being in tune with yourself - or maybe the struggle to be in tune with yourself.

As an actor the best thing you have is your imagination. You're not going to have all the experiences, but you draw on the things that you know. So I think you definitely use the things that you're familiar with to your advantage.

One thing that I don't think I do is play characters. Once you start claiming that you can do something that you're not, you're crazy. I think scripts can really surprise you. You go, "Wow, I did not know that that response could come from me. I did not know that I had that in me." And so, the process of making the movie is just finding that and digging a little deeper.

I think Ed Harris is a conscious screen actor, so I think it was strong, it was like he put everything together somehow in 'The Way Back'. He likes, I don't want to say the method approach, because that's not really necessarily his way of working, but it was easy to do because of the location. He'd go off by himself, and they would make things.

It certainly helps, I think, with some actors to understand the process of acting. You see what extraordinary pressure they're under, there's a huge circus dedicated to a particular moment and they're got to deliver and it can help that you, even if empathetically alone, understand what they're doing.

You really have to work hard to create a three-dimensional character. You have to rehearse and explore and take your time. You can't just memorize your lines and do it on the fly.

I don't see any difference in the craft of acting, in film or television. It's absolutely the same. It's different storytelling, playing a character over multiple hours, as opposed to two.

How you prepare for a role is entirely your business in my point of view. There is little enough mystery anymore left in the world in the part of our profession, which should be clouded in mystery because it isn't in the public. You don't want the magician to show his tricks or how he did them do you? So I do think that is a very private thing that we actors should protect ourselves from.

I'm all for whatever it takes to get wherever you need to get with a character, as long as you don't wipe it on me.