Octavia Spencer Quotes

People think memorizing lines is hard, when that's the last thing you worry about. You get that done, and then you've got to worry about the internal stuff, which is the challenging part.

When you do a play, you have the kind of nightly feeling of accomplishment. But you also have the daily dread of the doing it every night. And because you're doing the whole thing every day, it's like climbing up the mountain every single night. With a movie it's like climbing the mountain very slowly, over months of filming.

I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.

I was dyslexic, so math and formulas were not necessarily my strong suit.

I love shooting, when the character is interesting and the script is interesting, but the research beforehand is really fun. The whole process makes me anxious and restless, and I have trouble sleeping, just trying to figure out the character.

I definitely think it exercises an interesting muscle, auditioning for bad parts and trying to figure out how to make it real. I don't know what I'm talking about now.

I've never got a part in the same way twice. I've never prepared the same way. I've never experienced the filming the process the same way.

The hardest part of acting is not when I'm acting, It's when I'm not.

There is always pressure playing a real living person and even pressure developing a character from scratch.

I'd like to help other kids with dyslexia, because I'm dyslexic. It was very hard, and I know that what I went through, other kids are going through.

Acting itself is quite scary. Some people say that actors are show-offs, very egotistical and all that kind of stuff, but it is quite scary.

I don't think I would be a good actor! People enjoyed 'Dancing With the Stars' because I was myself, and every time they told me to say something, I would say my own words, so I don't think I could follow a script well!

I like to remind myself how hard acting is. I do parts in friends' stuff.

I've found acting on stage much more challenging than on screen.

I found acting tough; it takes a lot out of you if you have no technique.

I'd been auditioning for parts for years. I never got any better at it. I'm crap at auditions. I know there are people who can walk into those rooms and make those lines sing on the page and get the job immediately. I wasn't one of them. I'm still not one of them.

I was a theater actor back in the U.K., and you knew the whole play, so you could plot your storyline and character. And then I did 'Lost' and didn't know, and it was kind of frustrating, but I enjoyed it.

I feel like I go through cycles as an actress.

I find performing very difficult. It's difficult to be a good actor. I get very nervous, even though it sounds disingenuous, because you could legitimately go, 'Well, why do it?'

What happens so often as an actor is that you retain the information about the scenes that you yourself shot and you obsess over certain scenes that you found the most challenging or interesting. The rest of the film kind of falls away in your memory or it fades a little bit.

I like having the script before I start. With new plays, you're constantly developing as you're doing it. It's really frightening. You don't quite know how it's going to end up.

I had an issue with dyslexia before they understood what dyslexia was. One of my teachers, Mrs. Anderson, taught me to look at it like a curveball. The ball breaks the same way every time. Once you get used to it, you can handle it pretty well.

As an actor, it's hard to approach any character with negatives.

Being asked to memorise a script in one day when you have dyslexia is the same as having a broken foot and being asked to dance. You have to make exceptions for it.

Stevie Van Zandt could not walk on to a set and act. I don't know how actors do that! It's the scariest thing in the world.