Olivia Williams Quotes

Regardless of how dark and heavy the character is the actor has to approach it with that frame of mind.

If you're playing someone who's impeded by fear, or shyness, or has whatever dysfunction your character might have, you have to achieve the dysfunction first, imaginatively, in order to play someone who is trying to negotiate their way out of it.

One must never comment as an actor, never show that a character is shallow or vindictive, but let that be conveyed. I mean, none of us thinks of ourselves as being vindictive or shallow - perhaps we should.

The first thing, the main thing, about how I work is I need to understand the character.

I've just never been the kind of actor that things have stayed with. I've never needed to carry a character off stage.

Playing a drunk doesn't mean being a drunk, only bad actors try to be drunk. A real drunk tries to be sober, he wants another drink. How a character hides their feelings tells us who they are, no one shows their feelings except bad actors.

The point of acting is to hide yourself and get lost in character. To play the same character in eighteen movies would be defeating the purpose I believe so I try to keep a little bit of diversity.

I used to need the character but as I've gotten older I need it less and less - I prefer to play some version of myself. To approach any acting job as me just being me.

When you're playing a character who's cruel, look for the places where he's kind. When you're playing a character who is unhappy, look for the places where he has a glint of merriment.

As an actor, you can't say, "I'm going to try to be cool at all cost when I do this," because that's the opposite of what you need to do as an actor.

I surprised myself, that I was in the tissue of the character enough, that I could actually come up with something that I didn't actually feel or didn't believe.

The character is what trips you up - the thing of, "I'm going to get so dark in this character that I'm going to get lost in a character." You can't get lost in a character. You can only think you're lost in a character.

For me, personality acting is not that interesting. I don't want to just be myself.

The nuances and organic characteristics of a character become second nature if I'm doing my job well.

Actors pull from their own experiences to bring reality to the characters. I wouldn't want to play someone who's a lot like me. There would be no turning it on or off.

You take what you know, and you put it through your own prism. If I play characters that break down or cry, it's Gary Oldman crying; it's not the character crying.

I think, for every actor, the most challenging part of playing a character, specially a real-life character, is to convince yourself that you are the character.

It's quite a layered character that I portray in 'Jalebi' and I needed to deviate and cut-off completely from the world to get into a different zone as a character. I'm really glad it proved beneficial and worked to my advantage.

I've never really had a chance to play a bad guy, and that's something I've always really, really wanted to do. I wanted to experience that really dark side of a person.

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.

It was new to play a woman who plays with her sincerity, and who is a seductress, a manipulator and a liar! I was able to compose a character as opposed to being very natural, so it was very interesting for me. It was great to realise that I could be this kind of real woman!

No, I don't have to practice that grunt. You just do it. Once you're in character, you're in character. You don't sit there purposely thinking, Well, I'll grunt here, or I'll groan there.

If you're going to play a brain surgeon, you just have to learn how to say the words. You don't have to go and learn how to cut open somebody's scalp. I think acting is acting. Being is something else.

Whatever character you play, whatever film it is, whatever story it is, for me, in my training it's always something that gives you a layered character, it's understanding the secret of that character, and so whatever comes up as "Oh, I thought that person was that," you are always carrying that within you. So actually what you're playing all the way through is both and it's just what comes out in the scene or the circumstance.

Actors are always looking for ways to build a character.