Spencer Tracy Quotes

As an actor, you can't just imitate someone. You have to get under her skin.

I think I'm sort of method in a sense, and I enjoy, you know, trying to find that reality in fake emotion.

I never do roles, I play people.

Actors walk around wearing these little tool-belts of acting skills. And I just don't find that interesting to watch. I never want to see someone who clearly can cry at the drop of a hat. That's so uninteresting.

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.

It's true I have a hard time with the notion of creating a character. And I feel it's a limit. I'm always really impressed by actors who are able to construct a character, like Johnny Depp.

I'm an emotional actor. When I'm doing a scene, I really believe it. I live the part as long as I'm in the scene.

I don't really consider myself to be an actor of any particular style. My aim with every role I undertake is to be truthful and honest in that particular portrayal. I don't have a particular methodology from any one school of thought or training.

I've given every maid I've portrayed soul and heart.

'Serious acting' is the kind of acting that I don't ever respond to.

I just play him as myself, I don't ease myself into any role really. I stick a beard on and play me.

In acting, you have to pull from real-life situations, from people, to help develop a character.

All of the actors that have served to me as inspiration over the years have been those more associated with dramatic work who have, in turn, been able to embody their characters and lose themselves in those characters that they create.

It's easier to see in someone else, another actor, how they kind of disappear and then this other persona appears. A great actor is a thing of mystery.

Some actors are brilliant character guys. They submerge.

Great actors are people who just meld into the part without calling attention to the fact that they are so-and-so doing this part. They may never become huge stars, but will always, in memory, stay respected actors.

As an actor, you work to the script: that's our main priority. But you have to be aware and look around for things that help you bring that little bit extra, that touch of realism that rams the point home.

You try, as an actor, to wear a mask; you're serving a story.

Whether it's a very dramatic part or a comical role, I feel I need to create the same thing: a full-fledged, three-dimensional character that the audience can identify with.

Acting is not just impersonating your character.

I knew what kind of actor I was going to be, and I looked for inspiration to people like Alec Guinness, Cyril Cusack, Timothy Spall and Jim Broadbent. I looked at them and thought, 'They play human beings as they really are.'

Sometimes you read things that people don't even notice in a performance, that you just are moved by or understand that this actor is really living his or her life on the screen. The first time I realized that was when I watched Brando in 'On the Waterfront.'

I have to say that one person I learned from the most as an actor in my life is Emmy Rossum. She is so insanely talented in the sense that when watching her work, it just turns into watching her speak - it's no longer acting; that's how good she is! She just becomes the person.

As actors, that has been challenging for us to pick up the nuances of the living legends we are playing.

When you watch me on the screen, you should not be able to recognise me. If people say, you're a natural and an organic actor, that's an insult. If you're being yourself all the time on screen, that means you don't know how to act.