Amy Poehler Quotes

Acting is what I do. It's not what I solely define myself as.

When you're acting, you can try your own ideas and be free.

I don't worry about being exposed. When I'm writing about myself I think about myself as a character. There is a ton of stuff going on in my life that I don't write about. If I need to write that stuff down, I write about myself in my diary.

In other words, I wouldn't like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviorally wild, and it's crazy to think of any form where it's just one way.

I've always felt that almost every part I've played has been a character part. I mean, I look at it that way. I can't help how I look or how I seem to people.

My favorite thing about acting is that I can play all kinds of different people. Frankly, I don't consider myself a very interesting person, so the characters I play are usually much more fun.

Actors generally get to do things you probably shouldn't do in real life - well, at least as much as one might like to or be tempted to. Though I suppose a lot of actors just go ahead and do it, don't they?

It's fun to explore behavior that you can't explore in your own life, so you fool around with it in acting.

For me, it's always more difficult and slightly exposing to play something that's close to yourself. I always like to try to hide, just because I can't stand the way I look. But, I think it's important to change every time and come up with something that's as interesting as it can be, for your characters.

I don't like watching myself. That's kind of weird but you know it's not me really, it's this character, which I think might make it a little easier.

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.

When you're younger, you get scripts that you are too young for and now I'm getting scripts, which I think, "I'm too old for this character." They can always shift things around to make it work and make the ages work. But I'm definitely getting more complex and interesting roles and less what you would expect. So I can experiment more and have a bit more freedom when I'm putting things on tape.

Every character I play is me, always has been.

Being an actor opened doors for me to explore my emotions as different people and characters, and expand my own inner soul.

When you play a character, you bring yourself into the character. You get a chance to shine and show your translation for the character and her state of mind.

I think in every character there are aspects of yourself that you bring to it. But then it would be really boring to just play yourself.

I crave the diversity because I'm an actor and it's more fun to play different types of characters, but I'm pretty spontaneous as well, so I don't rule anything out.

I think there's always pieces of yourself that bleed into your character. That's inevitable. In some ways, we have similarities, but in other ways, we're completely different. It's hard to say because I'm an actor living in a world where we're all pretty privileged, and this guy is fighting for his life. They're very different circumstances. Within those circumstances, there are probably ways that we react to certain situations that are similar.

In all my characters, I try to find an iota of myself, and in Castle, I found a lot. He gets away with a lot, so that's fun.

The fact that I like to make characters doesn't mean that I like to watch my characters being made, my performance.

As an actor, there are so many different people to hide behind.

It's fun to play the character and then watch him later.

I didn't need clothes. I was allowed the opportunity to act out moments you don't get the opportunity to experience in your own life, let alone as a character in a film. I didn't feel naked.

I think the buzz of acting is playing people different to you, and for me, that means traversing all genres.

For me, personality acting is not that interesting. I don't want to just be myself.