Meagan Tandy Quotes

My dream role would be someone anything that Meryl Streep can do. 'Julia and Julia' - I thought that was beautiful. She just had the essence of her. To truly become someone, invoking emotions like happiness and sadness and everything in between, that's what I want to be able to do.

When I act, a part of me goes into the character I am playing.

I guess I'm just good at playing repressed individuals. I'm lucky because those are often the roles that catch people's eyes.

There are actors who are really fantastically talented at being natural on screen and appearing to be themselves, but I like the challenge of becoming somebody else.

I adore actors/actresses that have range: someone that can transform into a character that is far beyond who they truly are. Charlize Theron and Johnny Depp are amazing at this.

I'm a character actor and I get lost in these characters, so I think it's only recently that people have begun to connect dots and go, 'Oh, that's the same person that did this, this, this, this and this!' which I take as a compliment. One time somebody called me an illusionist, and that was the nicest thing anyone has ever said.

In every character that you play... I mean, I don't think I'll ever be the type of actor or performer per se who transforms, you know? Like Claire Danes transforms into Temple Grandin - I'm not gonna do that.

To disappear your complete self into a character is quite difficult. I've tried it 85 times, and I've succeeded two or three times.

Tilda Swinton is a great example of a person who completely disappears into a role.

I don't believe actors who say they don't bleed into their characters. It's absolutely impossible not to.

All of the actors that have served to me as inspiration over the years have been those more associated with dramatic work who have, in turn, been able to embody their characters and lose themselves in those characters that they create.

Actors who say they can dive inside a character are either schizophrenic or lying.

The actors I respect are the real character actors, who are the real chameleon actors that completely change from role to role. I love Peter Sellers, Alec Guinness and Gary Oldman. They tend to be British, I guess. People who really disappear and transform, I really like that.

Acting is different from stand-up. It gives you this ability to enter into another character, to create another person.

If Brando can do Capote and I can do Brando - well then, I can do Capote.

I can usually play polarizing characters.

You've got to bring yourself to any character you do.

It's my privilege to work with an actor like Vikram who gets into the skin of the character he is playing, so much so that after the shoot it takes him quite some time to get back to his real self.

I was blown away watching Michael Keaton act because he was such a maniacal, evil person on set. He takes on a totally different life, and it was so amazing to watch him work.

When you watch me on the screen, you should not be able to recognise me. If people say, you're a natural and an organic actor, that's an insult. If you're being yourself all the time on screen, that means you don't know how to act.

I don't approach my character in a set pattern. I want to get into the skin of the character. I don't love Manoj Bajpayee; I love all my characters. And that is why people today remember all my roles.

I started acting when I was 13 years old and I feel like I really admire actors who are these kind of amazing shape-changing people, that they almost can turn themselves into other people.

As an actor, I think it's always important to separate yourself from your characters because, when you include yourself in a character, you're taking a liberty that you don't really have unless you're life is that incredibly close to the character.

The actors I admire, like Ben Kingsley or Daniel Day-Lewis, they totally reinvent themselves in every part. I hope I get a chance to do that.

There's lots of incredible roles out there that I'd love to tackle, but there's a select group of actors I find myself gravitating towards, like Philip Seymour Hoffman or Sean Penn or Daniel Day-Lewis - real transformational actors.