Sylvia Kristel Quotes

A large part of acting is just pretending. You get to work with these other great make-believers, all making believe as hard as they can.

With modeling, you pose. You want to look your best all the time. With acting, you have to be aware of the camera, but the more you show your imperfections, the better you're going to be.

Acting is a really strange thing to do; it's very strange.

I think acting, for me, is about play. It's about time, and it's about feeling, like there's a story to tell and I can tell it through my body and my voice.

As an actor, you deal in fantasy, imagination, and concentration. Those are your three weapons. Those are your bullets.

Acting is the ability to dream on cue.

Of all the things I do, acting is the thing that grabs most, but there's another level on which it strikes me as being a little silly. In the end you're dressing up and deciding to be somebody.

Every time I see a good play or watch a good movie, I have the same feeling I had as a child of wanting to be that person on stage or wanting to run through the forest with a big dress on.

I learned mime back when I was in college, at Ball State University, Indiana. That woke up my body from the neck down and made me realize that acting and communication - portraying a story, event, or emotion - is a full-body experience.

I was lucky enough to be able to do comedies, dramas, completely different parts. At the beginning, when you start you have a fantasy that you could be somebody else. Which is absurd. That's part of being an actor. It's your voice, it's the way you move, it's your body, even if you transform it, you play with it.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

I am an actor and I live in the world of pretend in my working capacity. I live in the world of my imagination.

When you perform, you can convey emotions differently, and your look can reflect each of those emotions.

I've always loved the power of stories to transport me to another world, to imagine extraordinary possibilities, to experience things I may not have access to in my regular life - like being a superhero! Also, I would always put on shows for my family and the neighbors; I guess I was an actor before I even knew it.

Every time you get on a stage or in front of a camera, the whole exercise is about imagination. You're constantly depicting something that doesn't exist, and trying to find the reality of it. Once you settle on that premise, everything else is a matter of degrees.

Acting is a form of confession.

Everything, I think, about acting is based on imagination.

When you're acting, you're escaping and hiding behind something. It's cliched to say, but there's a safety there.

Acting is like lying. The art of lying well. I'm paid to tell elaborate lies.

I'm on fire when I'm singing, I'm completely in character, I use my sense memories, and every syllable of it is meant. It's a very special thing.

When I was dancing, whether it was the music or the story, the question was 'Why am I doing this piece, and why am I dancing?' It is exactly the same when you are acting. You have a very close relationship with your body movement. You have to find the physicality of your character.

My parents lived, breathed, ate and slept theatre. Emotions were right on the surface. Growing up, the unreal had as much importance as the real.

What I enjoy most is that every day I get to play a new character.

Acting is also working with people who invite you into their dreams and trust you with their innermost being.

Great acting may be a turn-on, but it won't make me fantasize about the person for a week.