Mia Wasikowska Quotes

My first day on set [Bad Santa 2] was with Billy [Bob Tornton] and it was a sex scene in a Christmas tree lot and you know in order to make it great for the audience you just have to go for it! It was our sort of our icebreaker. There is something very freeing and fun about just playing make believe and it's just over the top and hilarious so you just go for it.

'How the West was Won' was very hard, because it was a three cameras technique, meaning three cameras wide. Therefore I wasn't speaking to my fellow performer, I was speaking to a camera, or a line next to the camera. It was difficult to do, because its not real acting. I had to pretend that I was 'seeing' Agnes Moorhead or Jimmy Stewart or Carroll Baker. I wasn't, I was acting to a drawn line. It took me personally two years to make the film, because my character starts at age 16 and I end up being 92 years old in the film. By the end of that production, I was ready for a long nap.

There was definitely a learning curve in terms of being on film, but being on a set was all good.

When you are doing a show, it can get really dull. You are sitting so long while they set up the lights, then you say a couple of lines, then they tear down the lights again. At least stunts are something that uses your physical energy a great deal.

My first film as an actor was 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High,' a glorious experience that spoiled me for future films.

I remember my first scene with Alan Rickman, and I was anxious because he is a slight 'method' actor; as soon as he is in his cloak, he walks and talks like Snape - it is quite terrifying. But I really wanted to talk to him because 'Robin Hood' was one of my favourite films.

It's hard to get lost in a scene, to get into a character when everyone's standing around you on the set.

I have these surreal moments where I'm like, 'I'm pregnant with Jake Gyllenhaal's baby' and 'I'm telling Robert Pattinson that he smells of sex.' But you're acting, so the focus is on the work.

I learned more doing 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' than I did during three years at drama school.

With films, you completely immerse yourself in a character, get into who they are, live it and then release it.

I was in an acting class taught by Eric Morris, and Jack Nicholson was in the class. He wrote the script for 'Head', so all of us in the class got little tiny parts in the movie.

'Do the Right Thing' was like the first film where I really felt comfortable working with actors.

I think the height of ridiculousness was when I was playing Elizabeth in 'The Golden Age' while preparing to start shooting 'I'm Not There.' I literally finished filming Elizabethan grandeur on Friday, flew to Montreal, and started being Bob Dylan on Monday.

I only worked on Men of Honor for three weeks, but I walked away with so much. Because Bob is the kind of actor who gives you the opportunity to really go there. And we really had to go there. I mean, we were both playing drunks.

I did 'Shameless' on Showtime, and I felt like I really tried to go super-method with that, and it would just make my days really hard to get in and out of character.

Whenever I play a role, it's like I've been kidnapped inside my own body.

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

Once you begin shooting, Bollywood actors get totally involved in their roles, and that gives you an edge in getting what you want out of them.

We [me,Maggie Smith and Natasha Richardson ] rehearsed [Suddenly, Last Summer] like a play for a month, and then we shot it over the course of... I believe it was 10 days. All live, basically. Long, uninterrupted takes. And for me, a lot of it is me going head to head with Maggie Smith. And anybody who's ever had that opportunity never forgets it! It's a real career highlight, and it was everything I ever thought it would be, and more.

It's never really fun to have to cry in a scene, or anything like that. I just try to put myself in the characters position, and that helps. It's never really fun, but at the same time, if you're having a really bad day, it's a great way to get out all of your frustration by doing a really angry or sad scene. That's always a good release.

When you're acting, everything is there around you, you just have to believe that it's real. When you're standing there with a slightly grey wig on and you have a baby in your arms screaming in your ear, you can go: "Well, I guess this is what it's like!"

I've been in scenarios as an actor where you have to manufacture an emotion that's not really there, but it wasn't hard with Halle because she's a great person and very beautiful, so it ain't a tough job at the end of the day.

I get some acting jobs. I like it other than the constant slipping in and out of character.

It's so easy to disappear into your character because there isn't all this fuss around you, and we keep a closed set, and closed off to all crew members, even, unless we're cut. A lot of times, you're doing a scene in a movie and there are literally 35 people standing behind the camera all waiting to do their job, but here they have to be off the stage. On The Office, it is very much just the actors, a cameraman and a boom operator, like a real documentary, like we really are being documented.

I would love to do a period piece. That would be really cool. And also like to do something transformative and have to transform yourself physically to become that character. Any interesting, fun roles, I'm attracted to.