Allison Tolman Quotes

I feel that one of the hardest things in acting is the way you need to switch your emotions.

An actor matures with experiences, and the more the emotions he/she has been through, the greater the intensity of performances.

As an actor, the training I received was that I walk through the world as an observer of life and of people. My job is to actually be looking out all the time and watching people.

As an actor, you tend to draw on your human instincts and your background, what you've gone through as an individual.

Now that I'm acting, I've realized that I don't have a lot of barriers. Certain actors have a hard time with anger or with joy or with whatever, and, I don't know, I don't seem to have those barriers.

As actors, when we keep working every day, after a point of time, we just know all our emotional cards and how to play them.

An actor's job is to find variations of the same emotion in his being so that every time he expresses grief or joy, it doesn't look the same.

As an actor, you need everything you can get to be truly scary and truly memorable.

I am a proud participant of the Spencer Tracy School of Acting: Know your lines, don't bump into the furniture.

In order to be a good actor, I'm a firm believer that you need to bring something to the table.

I like to grow as an actor, and you can do that by playing parts that are unfamiliar to you and uncomfortable.

I have just gained a deeper and deeper respect for acting and the whole art of it because you're really trying to live a life and to do the best justification for it.

I try to steal from the best. Suck it all in. 'Taxi Driver' is really a bible for film actors, a master class. A lot of emotional power, a lot of emotional depth but it's contained and you just see the tip of the iceberg.

The secret of being a great actor is a love of food.

I pick up a lot of stuff from them, but I don't think there's any great trick to acting.

You see people in different situations behaving in very different ways. That can only benefit you as an actor.

I demanded two weeks of rehearsal because to me as an actor, that's the most important time.

Like any other actor, I draw on life experience.

It's a funny thing. You sort of never figure it out with acting. You're always learning.

Movie acting is about covering the machinery. Stage acting is about exposing the machinery. In cinema, you should think the actor is playing himself, if he's that good. It looks very easy. It should. But it's not, I assure you.

To be honest, there are so many things I learned in acting school beyond the method; it was a safe place to practice. So acting school was about exercising that acting muscle and doing it every single day - and having people tell you that you're bad every single day! Which pushes you to work even harder.

My first acting lessons were Shakespeare. The first time I ever started working with a coach was doing scenes from 'Measure for Measure,' which were tough dramatic scenes. And then 'Taming of the Shrew,' which required comedic timing. And that's the kind of stuff I love.

There's something about actors - not stars, but actors - if they have the character, and someone is pushing and shoving them to be the best they can be, they enjoy that.

I've had probably way too many acting classes, and you try to sort of shed - I think over a period of time, you'll shed what doesn't stick with you, and you'll hang onto those things that do.

For me, one of the most important things I look for in an actor is whether we can converse. Do we have a similar ability to discuss a character?