Olivia Williams Quotes

It isn't that easy to drop character, especially when you shoot for 12 to 16 hours a day for six months.

I love actors. That's my bread and butter, and I got to work with some amazing ones on '12 Years'.

My only job as an actor is to try and understand the character and, to the best of my ability, bring this character to life.

I did a lot of theater, so especially as an on-camera camera actor, there are so many things that aren't in your toolbox. They're somebody else's job. You think about editors and rhythm. Volume isn't even in your control.

The second I walk onto the set and I know that there's a camera and I know that there's a David Twohy behind that camera, there is zero pressure. There is just me jumping into a pool called 'Riddick.' It's the most free I am. It's like channeling something.

I think that for the actors, the last thing that they want is a director that's not watching, a director that goes 'Okay, it sounded good to me,' and they were doing something else or preoccupied with something else because they were worried about the light changing.

In 2005, I had the great honor of playing Shailene Woodley's mother in 'Felicity: An American Girl Adventure.' I was immediately impressed by her work ethic, both on and off set.

The best situation is where they cast you and then they trust you.

On the stage, you alone hold the key, and on the night you have to trust that the director has inspired you enough to take the material and run with it.

Script for an actor is like a bible. You carry it with you, you read it over and over, you go to your passages.

Obviously, I play a villain in 'Downton Abbey'. As an actor, you want to get a variety of roles, so to be offered the part of Joe, it was perfect.

Preparation is definitely important, but it depends on the kinds of roles I do. Like, I completely identify with my character in 'Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani.' I had to be myself and I didn't have to actually prepare for it.

Part of an actor's job, in my opinion, is adjust to the characteristics of the director and try to understand to how he tries to work.

Memorizing dialogue has always come easy and quickly to me. My wife Eileen is also very helpful. She gives me choices, and asks me questions, and runs my lines with me.

Sometimes you're working with somebody, and you can tell they're just waiting to say their line.

When I rehearse, it ends up doing more harm than good. I think I work a little bit better when it's right off the bat. Mostly, I try to wrap my head around a role as much as I can without rehearsing and then kind of make it as fresh as possible on the day.

You realize that as much as you want to socialize with the people on the set, or you want to, after a day shooting, joke around or whatever. Somehow, with playing Jesus, this doesn't happen. You actually need to decompress and be on your own and prepare on your own. It never happened to me before.

'Olive Kitteridge' is the only thing that I've done on camera where we had a day of rehearsal before we shot, and I'm so glad that that happened, because I was so nervous.

I do always feel very proud and flattered by being asked to be a part of American productions playing American characters.

I loved playing Chandler. I grew up playing that part.

If I am not confident that I can portray the character perfectly on screen, I won't even try.

As an actor, I love working with directors. As much as I love working with other actors.

In my job, whenever I delivered a presentation I would rehearse several times before the actual event. In sport, it is important to be equally prepared about my opponents.

To play Hillary Clinton? I'm kind of winging it. No, are you kidding me? I prepared obsessively. I mean, as much as I could in the time that I was given. Of course, with someone like Hillary Clinton, obviously, anything you want is on YouTube and at your fingertips there.

As an actor, some of the most fun days I've had on set have involved shooting blanks all day - or better yet, on a micro-budget indie shoot in Texas, shooting live ammo. I feel guilty admitting this, but make-believe beating a man half to death for nine hours can also be strangely satisfying and, dare I say, good fun.