Hill Harper Quotes

I had an acting teacher tell me once that if you're playing a car salesman, you don't want to be an OK car salesman, you want to play the best car salesman.

What I learned about acting is that you become the character, like I became 'Timothy Green.'

When you get to set, you don't try to play the plot; you just play the character.

Your job as an actor is to piece together whatever you've learned in your training, or whatever you have experienced in your life, to piece together a person.

I don't really prepare for roles. I just kind of do them!

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

Being an actor myself I realize that all actors believe they are qualified to play any role. If you showed me a script with a black woman character I would tell you that I could do it. That is what we do. We act as if we are someone else.

As an actor, one's role is very much to respond and react to the situation within the context of the character and his world.

That's what acting is. You're pretending to be someone else.

I don't really prepare for each role the same way.

When I do film, I really take on roles and I take on characters.

As actors, you play people who are not yourselves!

Actors are responsible to the people we play.

You have to examine a scene on the page first. Then you get into the basics of acting: Who are you? Who are you talking to? How do you feel about that person?

How do I act so well? What I do is I pretend to be the person I'm portraying in the film or play.

The trick to acting is not to show off, it's to think the thoughts of the character.

I'm a method actor.

In every film, whether it's a fictional character or not, you create an idea of the character and for me I always do a bad impersonation to start with.

Acting is not just impersonating your character.

Actors act... Their job is to become this character. And I have, in fact, seen Sam Heughan become Jamie and Caitriona Balfe become Claire right before my eyes. It was an astonishing transformation.

I like to prepare for my roles well, so you can call me a method actor to an extent.

Playing a real-life character, as an actor, gives me real high because there is so much of research material available in front of you.

Most actors do that. They fill in the blanks. You don't want to play a cipher.

I was trained by Method acting teachers and we were taught that aside from whatever gift you may or may not have or the level of that gift, that you were obliged to know how to build a table. It's a craft. It's like being a ballerina or a violinist.

I love acting and really taking on another person, another life.