Kassie DePaiva Quotes

When I was doing 'All in the Family,' half the time, I was looking at where the cameras were, where were the other actors in the scene, what the audience was doing.

We did very little improvisation on camera, and once in a while we did.

Layers are not difficult for me. You have the luxury of takes, so if you feel like, say, you did not take in the fact that your aunt is across the way in one take, you do it again and try to add that piece.

It's hard enough to just be a good actor. When you're on set, there's everything going against you. There are walkie talkies going off, the camera is creaking and moving, there are boom mics, and you have to hit your mark and make sure you don't shadow the other person's face. It's a really technical process.

You will find hardly any improvising on camera anywhere in my films. It's very structured, but it's all worked out from elaborate improvisations over a long period, as you know.

If a scene is three pages long, quite often people break it up and do a page, say 'cut' then move on to the next bit, they do it in cuts. I don't really like doing that; I like to go through it all in one organic run, then give notes afterward. A little bit more like theater.

I'm not a big fan of table reads or sitting around a table and reading a script. I'd rather do it on set and do it for real.

That's all TV acting is. Like, let me find my mark and seem like I'm still acting. Sometimes they'll put sandbags there, but then it's even funnier because you're walking and you're, like, stepping into sandbags, so now you look like you're having a seizure.

I'm just so used to music videos or live TV, so to really see something that's scripted and you have to do it over and over again to get every angle - it's fascinating to me. I would love to do a little acting.

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

I'm unable to do the thing that Broadway actors do in plays, sometimes for years. The same exact blocking, the same exact lines. I'm a little bit uncomfortable with that. Every night I'm looking for ways to try something else.

The thing about being an actor is that you're acting. It's not that big of a deal of to play someone different from yourself.

It's fun to play the character and then watch him later.

I hate sitting around a table and talking about what a play might mean. I'm the person who's always like, 'Can we get up on our feet and just do it?'

I'm the girl that waits for the director to say, 'I like that,' or 'Can you boost it up?,' or 'Can you pull it down?' I'm that kind of actor. I started in theater, so that's the feedback that I'm accustomed to. It's the feedback that I really thrive off of.

Every actor I think has got their own number of takes that they like, you know. Some actors like to go all day, you know on the one scene and some actors want to take two takes. I personally like four.

I've done films where we don't rehearse, and I've done films where we heavily rehearse. I like rehearsals.

First, you do a piece of material that begins and ends and has a flow; it's not chopped up as in a film, where in an extreme case you might be doing the last scene of the script the first day that you go to work, and you don't know enough about the character you're playing.

Working on a soap opera is such good training for the novice actor. No rehearsal, 120 pages of dialogue per week, and one take to get the scene right. No room for error.

I like finding stuff that I suck at and trying to get better. So I'm taking classes, getting myself comfortable in an acting scene. You've got to work out those ticks. For instance, standing up used to be really hard for me. I act much better if I'm sitting down.

All the things you can do to prepare for a role that free you, in the moment, are great. You have this muscle memory for things. You don't have to act it as much, once you've done it enough.

I'm not what you'd call a Method actor.

With theater, you have to really be able to listen and to respond to other people on stage. You're all constantly on your toes. And then with film and television, you can get a second take and things like that.

I don't usually like talking about acting or what my process is, and all those kinds of things, because I don't necessarily think it's helpful to talk about how I do my job.

There's no better training than working on a soap opera because of the amount of hours, the amount of pages you do a day are unbelievable. It's the best training I had in terms of discipline.