Liza Weil Quotes

I took my play very seriously, and I got way, way lost in my play world.

If I'm doing a scene that requires a lot of focus, I'll just take myself away and do what I have to do.

It isn't that easy to drop character, especially when you shoot for 12 to 16 hours a day for six months.

When I am rehearsing for a play, I try to read nothing that might distract my concentration from the work in progress.

When I attack a role, be it TV, film or stage, the first thing I say is, I don't want to know anything. If it's good I don't want to hear it; if it's bad I don't want to hear it. The only thing either thing can do is distract me. I like to stay focused.

Coming from a background of being onstage, you're onstage for two and a half hours and you're in it for the whole time no matter what you're doing. Even if you don't have a line, you have to stay in it.

I find it so all-encompassing when acting that there's no room for anything else when you're in it; you're just locked into thinking about it all day, you go to sleep with it, wake up with it, and when I come back, I really need time to recover.

I would take plays and I would cut out all the other dialogue and make long monologues because I felt the other kids weren't taking it as seriously as I did.

When I'm working, I don't wake up and say, 'OK, time to go be intense.' I just look at whatever scenes we're working on that day and break them down - just real intense everyday work.

You realize that as much as you want to socialize with the people on the set, or you want to, after a day shooting, joke around or whatever. Somehow, with playing Jesus, this doesn't happen. You actually need to decompress and be on your own and prepare on your own. It never happened to me before.

Whenever I am acting, it's everything, you know. If I'm researching a role, I'm completely consumed in that and, between action and cut, I live in this suspended time.

When I'm on set, I do whatever I can to find my focus.

You get involved with a character after spending a long time waiting, and this demands a lot of energy and concentration.

I just want to act. I just want to do the work.

I'm on my boat, training, rehearsing; I spend all my energy on the job that's coming up, and I found that's the way that works for me. The more energy you have on set, the better you'll be; it's all about being alive in that moment and listening.

I think everybody's got different methods of working which suit the particular individual. Mine is to sort of play the part, and give 100%, to concentrate and focus on it while I'm actually working, but then leave it behind until the next day.

There are days when I'll write for 15 minutes and have to give up and move around, and I'll write another paragraph and give up again. On other days I get intensely - focused on the process, sit down at 8 A.M. and won't get up until 8 P.M.

I was never much of a musical theater guy, but I have so much more respect for the art form, the physical exertion of doing eight shows on Broadway a week, I cannot even fathom it.

The play is on top of me all the time, and I am constantly thinking about it. Even when I leave the theatre, I'll mumble the lines to myself or think about the way the character walks or holds himself.

You have to be sharp when the camera's rolling. I want to be totally unselfconscious, like a child playing. I do as much prep as possible so I can lose myself for those seconds.

When you're acting, it should be the most important thing that's going on. But when you're not, leave it alone.

I enjoy working away from home as it gives me the space to really commit to the character.

I will do whatever I can to become the character. I have no right to distract the audience from the mood of the film.

If I sit quietly in a corner waiting for the camera to roll, it doesn't mean that I am aloof and cut off from people. It could be that I am thinking about the shot or going over my lines.

My job is to act, so I just focus on that.