Sam Levinson Quotes

Body language is essential for an actress, even if you don't use your body in an athletic way. Just to be free, to use it like your voice. A body can be small and have incredible violence. A body talks.

Acting is very physical, even when it doesn't appear to be. It's about the arc of your body's language through a film.

There are times when I consciously give the character something physical - a walk, the way he sits, how he talks, or his lack of physicality, which is like a physicality.

I'm a very physical actor; everything I do is pretty much body-oriented. I sometimes am able to deliver information just with a look; my face does two or three different things, and it says it all.

I'm pretty much of a physical actor.

When you are in a live-action movie, you have so many more options to express yourself. You can use your body and your gestures and facial expressions. When you are doing an animated movie, you really only have your voice.

When you act, your whole body is the instrument.

In films, the camera catches each nuance of expression in close ups. On the stage, it is less subtle, you have to act with your whole body.

I use my hands a lot while acting.

Obviously, doing TV and doing theater are completely different because they're two totally different mediums. On stage, you worry about your voice and how you move physically. On TV, something like an eye twitch is what they could be looking for from you because it's so contained.

I started out as an impressionist and that's all about observing - how people move, their voice quality, their attitudes and quirks.

I feel like I'm more of a physical actor than a voice actor.

Every role is physical to a certain extent, but as a viewer, I don't respond well to actors doing more than they need to tell a story.

Breathing is always key in any character. When you have a character with no voice, that makes it even more important.

I think there's something to be said for being physical in acting.

Modeling is really silent acting.

In a costume, you need very exaggerated body language - as you say, sort of mime-type skills.

I really think that effective acting has to do literally with the movement of molecules.

The thing that got me closest to doing Kermit was remembering what Jim did when he was doing Kermit. When he would do Kermit, there were certain faces that he made. There was a certain way he stood, a certain kind of body language that he had.

I'm a very physical actor.

When we did 'Endgame,' we were all hunched over and making the craziest sounds. Then I graduated and went right into auditioning for 'Gossip Girl' and things like that, where, as an actress, you're required to act from the neck up and, from the neck down. It's a presentation of your birthday-suit self.

Everybody thinks performance capture is about thrashing around and doing a lots of movement, but it's actually about being able to contain and think and be believed in a close-up, as much as anything else.

A character is as much about what you do as what you say.

Some of the best actors in the world are very exterior actors, Anthony Hopkins being one of them. He knows exactly how to turn his face to get a certain expression. He knows exactly what to do with eyes, and with his voice. It's very exterior.

One of my favorite actors is Paul Newman. He could tell so much with a single look, whereas some actors would need an entire five page monologue to give off the feeling of what he could say with just a single look.