Jacqueline McKenzie Quotes

Every actor has their own process. For me, I really need to stay in the pocket. So, if I'm on set and I'm in character, I'm not thinking like a producer. If I'm on set and I'm not in character, wardrobe and make-up, and I'm just coming on set for the moments that I'm not shooting, then I'm able to be the producer.

The frustrating part of being a movie actor is waiting in your trailer to do two takes of a scene you've prepared for two months.

I've never got a part in the same way twice. I've never prepared the same way. I've never experienced the filming the process the same way.

Sometimes a scene works and acting is the easiest thing in the world and you don't have to do much of anything - just enjoy yourself and listen to the other actor. When it doesn't work, then every actor has different ways of dealing with the impasse. Sometimes you use memories from the past. Whatever. It depends from job to job.

My number one passion is acting, but I also think there's something so special in being able to support a script and an idea and take it all the way through to fruition. I think that process is so rewarding.

You have the massive world that was created by Marvel, and then you have these very intimate actors around you. There was as much character work on this as there would be on a little independent film. So, I felt very fortunate in that sense.

Film and television are so piecemeal. You do one scene, and then you put it to bed, and then you do a scene that comes before. In a play, you have to go from beginning to end every night, and that's harder, but also more fulfilling in a way.

I'm always like this with a new movie role. I always get super-defensive and make noises like a rooster, Maybe that's because I spent so much time as a chorus girl.

Stevie Van Zandt could not walk on to a set and act. I don't know how actors do that! It's the scariest thing in the world.

As an actor, I love the feeling of being on set and the camaraderie of working on something together.

I love the process of working with a filmmaker and the writers and the actors.

Performance was a shock to me. The first time I remember feeling I could do it was during the making of my first video, 'Fun for Me.' I couldn't sleep the night before the shoot, I was so frightened. I had to play a ghost and a piece of merchandise in a shop window, and I had no idea whether I was going to be able to pull it off.

I'm just so used to music videos or live TV, so to really see something that's scripted and you have to do it over and over again to get every angle - it's fascinating to me. I would love to do a little acting.

I got a chance to act in a film, 'Derailed.' I was having a recurring nightmare, and after doing that film, the nightmares stopped.

When I was a bit younger, I did this tiny role on 'The Musketeers,' and I had to stay dead.

I got to work with great actors like J.K. Simmons and Jenna Elfman. They were amazing.

I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.

It's interesting going between small parts and then bigger roles where you carry the film. If the writing is good, and if the people involved have integrity, then you'll do it, even if it's only five minutes on screen.

'Ray Donovan' was all fiction and pure fun, to be working with such greats as Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight. My character was recurring, but my storyline was intricate to the whole thing. With the character that I played, I got to go through all aspects of my instrument. I got to bring it to tears and to laughter.

I usually don't say anything to the actors. It works better for me because when they come to the set, they are at the same time scared and excited because they are not well aware of what will happen.

I did Shakespeare in college and the nerves I got doing Shakespeare are the same nerves I get doing 'Mad Men.'

You might have, as a character, 30 pages of dialogue a day if you're what they call a 'front-burner story.' So you go home, you learn your lines for the next day, you get up, you're there at 7 in the morning, you do a quick rehearsal, you're on camera, you might leave, you know, at 7 at night and start the whole thing over again.

I don't sit around with other actors and talk about the pain and the magic of acting.

I had done my first picture and I didn't have anything to do for awhile. I was asked to come back to New York and do Bus Stop in the role of the cowboy opposite Kim Stanley.

I like the feeling of making things. It's very very rewarding. And filmmaking is that type of experience, where you're forced to collaborate with so many people. You're involved in the beginning to end, you're involved with so many elements, and when it's done, you're like, 'I made this movie.'