Regina Doman Quotes

Everybody has parts of themselves that they're not 100% happy with - that's what makes you human. And being an actor, your job is to play human beings. Your job is to play real people.

You've got to understand what makes the character human.

I feel like people assume if a character is very different than you, that means it's difficult to get into their head or into their skin.

I think as long as I can tell you a story about people that you understand, it doesn't matter if you don't like what they do; you understand why they did it.

I let characters be human and flawed and relatable. When we do things that aren't that great, we can understand it.

It's so funny, you go to acting school thinking you're going to learn how to be other people, but really it taught me how to be myself. Because it's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience.

The character is close to me, except that I haven't lived through those situations, so it's not completely me.

I guess you could say that no matter what the characters are enduring, I try to make them retain their humanity. Their self-absorbed, grouchy, selfish, aggravating humanity.

I think for really good-hearted people, that idea of putting yourself in the shoes of a monster to figure out why they acted that way, that's a really frightening idea.

Acting is the business of truth, so that we can see ourselves reflected back and learn.

I like telling stories of imperfect people because most people are imperfect.

Approaching a part or thinking about taking a part, I never think, 'Is that person like me?'

In my acting, I have tried to do this - to present to audiences a living creature in whom they can recognise themselves or someone they know.

Everyone is usually screwed up in some way and that is usually where the work comes in - figuring out how to make it believable and make it real to present someone's problems that you don't necessarily actually know anything about.

I feel there's something about becoming a character that helps people understand themselves.

I think it's always easier to play parts that you have something concrete that you can relate to.

I try genuinely, when I'm playing a character, to not judge them and just to inhabit someone as how one sees them. That being said, you also want to make sure that you don't blur the edges of people too much because humans are naughty and complicated beings.

I get a lot of people saying to me, 'Oh, you're the actor who plays the nutters,' and I'm not. I'm the guy who plays human beings. I understand why the characters are doing what they're doing. When you play a villain, you don't play a villain: you play a human being doing what he thinks he needs to do to get what he wants.

I've never disliked a character I've played. I've always tried to find the humanity and the reasons for what he does.

People treat serious subjects so seriously, which is so obvious a way of dealing with them. I'm always thinking that the best way of dealing with them is to show people as human beings.

I can find some part of me that relates to even the most evil characters. At least in my imagination.

I prefer to do roles that I can relate to.

A helpful thing for me has always been - this is from a great acting teacher Declan Donnellan - is this beautiful way of expressing how and why people do things that other people may not do. It's a simple sentence that says, 'I understand you; you don't understand me.'

I don't believe in villains - just people who channel their energy in the wrong way.

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that literature can do - it can make us identify with situations and people far away.