Parker Stevenson Quotes

What you learn from studying acting is that you have to have the courage to just make strong choices.

I find talking about acting very boring, having to come out with platitudes about how terribly nice everyone is. I would much rather just do it.

I'm not a trained actor. I surrender to my directors, and they make me act.

Acting is the way I make my living.

It's an acting job - acting natural.

There are two main jobs in acting - the first one is to be a good actor, and the second one is to convince everyone that you're a good actor.

Working with actors is something I've never done before. I find it tremendous. It's hard work.

I look at actors very closely. It's not an accident when the actors excel.

As for acting, I took drama lessons when I was in high school.

Drama is not hard for me. It just didn't seem hard.

Acting is the only thing I'm even vaguely good at and acting is something that I think I do know about.

I made my drama teacher cry. I only took drama to get out of writing papers in English and the teacher was this thespian Broadway geek and here I was this Italian guy from Staten Island and I would put her in tears.

There's no mystique to acting. It's only common sense - and a bit of courage.

Obviously there are times with acting when exactly what is required is just going through the motions, and when doing nothing is the best thing. But at other times, you have to make that leap beyond the immediate environment of people putting up lights on the set.

I think there's a lot of mythos about what's required in acting.

Auditioning and actually acting on a set are two different things. When you audition, you're in a room and you don't have anything to play with and you don't have anything physically in the room. Whereas on set, you have direction, you have costumes, and you have other actors to work with. It's a completely different thing.

Good acting is thinking in front of the camera. I just do that and apply a sense of humor to it. You have to trust the audience to get it.

Acting is not about dressing up. Acting is about stripping bare. The whole essence of learning lines is to forget them so you can make them sound like you thought of them that instant.

I love actors, and I love good acting. I love what actors do when they're good, and I'm a big acting fan.

As an actor, when you're winning the moment over, there's a truth to your intention. You might laugh at it or you might cry at it, but I think your visceral reaction to it is a reaction to the truth of the moment.

I am an actor. I try to do different things.

Acting is a state of being, and the camera can tell instantly if you're lying. But there are many different ways to approach that state of being. Each director has his own approach to the situation, and that's really interesting.

I was really pretentious in a sense and was like, 'I'm going to drama school to learn the craft.'

I didn't know that I could act, but my friend told me, 'Before you do directing, maybe you should try acting. It would be better for you. When you know how to act, it would help you be a better director.' So I was like, Oh, maybe, okay, maybe I'll try.

Acting is about being in the moment and audiences are smart to know what is authentic and what is not.