Vin Diesel Quotes

What I didn't realize about television was that's true of acting, as well. You have that space of time to develop who you are, and you can use more and more of yourself. The lines between that character that I'm playing and myself become more and more blurred and, after awhile, they just disappear, altogether.

In terms of jumping into a character's skin, I try to immerse myself in the role as much as possible to bring me closer to them. All I do is what's required to achieve what I want to achieve.

You try to become the character that you're working with. So for me, I try to block out the cameras and try to trick my mind that this is actually happening.

I think it's my job to like any character I play - to understand and appreciate a character, to look at the world as much as possible from their point of view. I don't look at it just technically: learn the lines, figure out what gestures I want to bring and play, and that's it. I like to learn as much as I can about the person, and see what happens.

I would love nothing more to participate in a real struggle to find a character, and really delve into and develop a character. That's why I'm an actor.

Every character lives in ever actor and if you're doing your job right, you're just accessing that part of your fantasy life. I can kill someone just as quickly as I can have sex with someone. You can switch that instinct, no matter what - you can pretend anything.

For me, I have having the time of my life playing this character [Louis Litt]. At times, it's unbelievably challenging and scary, when it comes to certain vulnerable areas that I don't necessarily want to go.

One thing that I don't think I do is play characters. Once you start claiming that you can do something that you're not, you're crazy. I think scripts can really surprise you. You go, "Wow, I did not know that that response could come from me. I did not know that I had that in me." And so, the process of making the movie is just finding that and digging a little deeper.

As an actor you bring some of your own experiences which can make things easier. You build off of it, but your imagination is always the best thing you have as far as creating things I think specifically for what that character is going through. But you're definitely drawing obviously upon things that you can connect to, and then you kind of mold the change that you're making into something that's right for the character.

I'm all for whatever it takes to get wherever you need to get with a character, as long as you don't wipe it on me.

There's a kind of acting that goes on in my head when I'm writing a character where I put myself in their place.

I had the prosthetics on, and I went to my trailer, I looked in the mirror, and I smiled. And I was, like, "This is the character - everything she does is with a smile and a bit of glee and joy." And that's how I created Darla [from Buffy The Vampire Slayer]. Prior to that, I was, like, "I have no idea how to play this 400-year-old vampire from hell!".

I don't think there's a certain part of a character I take with me. There's a certain part of me I leave with each character, though.

Acting, it's the disappearance of self, disappearance of your own needs and your own wants and the kind of embracing of the character that makes it work.

When you start and you're taking the character seriously, it's going to lead down a variety of paths.

I think you're bound to get a sense of any character that you play. It's not something you often do in comedy.

You bring yourself to every role, it doesn't matter who it is, it doesn't matter if it's a mass murderer, you can bring something to it.

In acting, you get to explore such an artistic side with different characters to research and learn and explore different things inside yourself and I do that anyway, so I might as well be doing something that I already do, as in a second nature to me, on film.

I'm certainly not one of those actors who remain in a dark place the entire time in order to be doing the scene. I sort of come in and out of it. It can be to the detriment of my performance sometimes!

I make a playlist for every character I portray. Music plays a huge part in helping me understand a character. Every time I get a new role, I will take a chunk of time to just sit and listen to a bunch of songs and select the ones that make sense in my mind for that character. I can't even explain how much it helps me.

All good actors are unpredictable, and a little crazy in a good way, because they feel more secure playing other people than themselves.

The hardest role that I've ever tried to play was Clara Johnson in 'Light in the Piazza' at Lincoln Center. It was the least fun I've ever had, but the most beautiful experience I've ever had. I could not understand her. I could not put my feet in her shoes. I came home every night, and I was depressed.

Sometimes you can just step into the character, and you get all your feelings and emotions just from sympathizing with her and being her. But then, other times, you just have to resort back to anything that you've been through in your own life and try to play that.

I don't believe actors who say they don't bleed into their characters. It's absolutely impossible not to.

The repetition of the theatre means you've got the time to get deeply inside the person you're playing.