Charlie Day Quotes

I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do

There are parts that you can do them all your life, and no one knows you're even acting, and there are other parts which somehow - I think they say they 'pop' - people notice that you're in and you become an actor from the movies and people take you in a whole different way. Whether or not I can keep that ball rolling is another matter.

When I watch people like Cate Blanchett act, I don't know what is going on in her life, you just get lost in her performance and that's what I hope to do as well.

People say, "Why is it that you love to act?" And you want to say, "Well, most of acting is sitting in your trailer, either bored or worried about the scene coming up." A lot of it is about things you don't really like, so it's a wonder why acting is such a huge draw, why everyone loves it so much.

Acting is always sort of the same - like you want to be - you know you're pretending and you want to make it as real as you can. That's the similarity. The mediums other than that are completely different. I mean you know with camera work you're doing really small detailed work and you know if you do anything too big you've sort of failed. And with stage, especially with the play I'm doing right now, I'm doing a farce, and it's so over the top that you can't actually be too big. So it's just completely different.

That's the thing about acting - it does have the feeling of downhill skiing. When it's really all going right, you know your lines, you know what's important to your character, you pick the strongest reactions possible to elements in the story. But then you let it all go and you're in the moment and stuff happens. It surprises you and it's super strong; it's like you're living life in a slightly heightened way in the time between "action" and "cut."

I didn't even know what acting was at 11 years old. I truly believed that acting was hidden cameras everywhere. And I felt that these actors on the screen were somehow real people.

Movie acting is harder than doing a play. You have to be entertaining but completely natural, like Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. They weren't doing anything. Do you have any idea how hard that is? That's how good they were. It's crazy hard to be convincing and real. It's the most subtle, hardest thing there is.

I played Winnie the Pooh in first grade. I was an early adopter of standing in front of people and looking like an idiot.

When you're an actor, you show up and it's wonderful because you're in the world of make-believe.

I'm the kind of person who if I was playing the role of someone who got shot, I'd probably want to get shot so I knew what it felt like.

Of all the roles I've done on the stage, I'm partial to Cyrano de Bergerac.

In the moment of acting you don't feel like anything, you feel like the person, as much as you can.

By being an actor, one can explore various personalities of a human being, be that person, behave and live that person's life, and then you are back to your normal life.

It was sort of his 'Brando' moment - his very 'method' moment. He just absorbed it and continued on.

I like to disappear in my roles because I don't have an assistant.

Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain - there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up - and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And It's a complete experience.

That's, to me, the ultimate goal - to disappear inside another character and bring them so fully to life that I've convinced other human beings that it's a real person.

There's a lot to be said for getting really comfortable in a character.

I'm so different to the roles I play, and perhaps that's why they are appealing to me as an actor. But I would never want to inhabit my characters' shoes in real life.

I started to view theatre like a spiritual experience. You're on stage saying somebody else's lines, but you're saying them with full commitment of being that person.

I believe I am a character actor who likes to hide behind my characters.

I was someone who was out of control and not to be worked with. It was partly because method acting was a new thing in Hollywood then and Marlon Brando had gotten through and Montgomery Clift had gotten through and James Dean but beyond that there wasn't really anybody.

Theater gave me the confidence to believe I could play something else, 'cause it was so difficult. It was me out of my comfort zone. It gave me the confidence to believe that I could push myself and challenge myself and still succeed. Yeah. I'm very, very glad I did it. And I'm very keen, now, to take what I learned there into more television and film.

One of the things I love most about acting is just disappearing in the role, as much as I can. I think that's one of the things that intrigued me about it.