Keira Knightley Quotes

To portray a real-life character is the toughest job for an actor because one never knows which direction to flow.

There is an art to acting, and there are techniques that are acquired. You can be as emotional as you'd like, as a person, but figuring out ways that you can bring specific emotions at specific times and have them be true, and relating to someone as someone that they're not, is a lot.

I think, for every actor, the most challenging part of playing a character, specially a real-life character, is to convince yourself that you are the character.

There are parts that you can do them all your life, and no one knows you're even acting, and there are other parts which somehow - I think they say they 'pop' - people notice that you're in and you become an actor from the movies and people take you in a whole different way. Whether or not I can keep that ball rolling is another matter.

I've been the victim a lot, so I've often played the person who's getting raped or murdered or abused. And so, to actually be raping and murdering and abusing people is a whole different kind of challenge, and one that was very difficult, at times.

It's fashionable for modern actors to talk about getting 'inside' a character. But you can't get to the inside without getting the outside right first.

It's like they talk about how American actors have the method and English actors just kind of switch views faster. And John [Hurt] is telling me the story as he's sitting in that witness chair, and they're putting the final touches of makeup on. And he goes, "Hold on a second," to stop his story so he can do the take. And he does this incredible take. They go, "Cut." And then immediately John goes, "Anyways, so Alec, he's playing the chess." And I'm just going, "Holy crap." You get whiplash from those kinds of quick turns!

One of the great tools we use in acting is the idea of immediacy, that the audience gets to see you witness something apparently for the first time, so you create a lot of tools to kind of trick yourself into making it appear something is happening for the first time.

I'm not that complicated as an actor. I have a formula in which I work, yeah. But not like Sean Penn does. Sean is one of the few actors I know who can work like that, actually becoming the character he is playing, and get consistent results. I don't believe you can ever be someone else. You manifest different levels of your own personality to come up with a character.

Usually, I'm the kind of actor where you show me once or twice, I can do it. I don't do it creatively, but I know how to do the process.

I love actors. I enjoy their company, and I get excited each and every time they bring a character I've written to life. Every so often a talented actor doesn't hook in correctly to a character; or someone gets lost in a labyrinth of over-complicated thoughts, and the character and play suffer. However, most of the time I find actors either end up doing exactly what was in my head, or sometimes do something even better.

Acting is broad enough a church that you can pick your races, decide which way you want to go at different times.I think that the story and circumstance tends to dictate the most and then what you do with your own approach after that.

It's much easier, for example, to play a heroin addict and you're withdrawing - you tear the ceiling off - that's much easier than it is to come in and say, 'Hello.' Or, 'I love you'. When you judge it in that way, the heavy isn't as difficult.

I forget who said it, but someone said, your job as an actor is to communicate the most honest version of this character, and so the parts of you that you can use are obviously the easiest to access, because you live through them every day.

When you play a character, you bring yourself into the character. You get a chance to shine and show your translation for the character and her state of mind.

You'll never see any two good actors approach a role in the same way.

Acting is a marvelous profession ... If you can spend enough time playing other people, you don't have to think too much about your own character and motivations.

As actors we're supposed to be our character's advocate.

Working on camera is a different ballgame in the sense that it's far more intimate work, but the basics and the foundations of being able to create something that isn't necessarily your own instincts - is a character that you have inside your head - whether you're talking about television or film or theater, that still has to be the grounding work.

You have this certain about of responsibility to play a fictitious character and you have a script that's guiding you and the other information of the custom department's choices, and the set department, "Where are you," and all those other pieces of information but you have to cull from your imagination the answer to all the unasked questions. And with a real person, there's someone to get that information from, perhaps.

I'm an actor, and everything about me - the way I perceive things, the way I have seen the world - has been in relation to characters and how I would want to play something or not play it.

It was a lot of fun to play a character [in Swiss Army Man] with no inhibitions, and with no knowledge of the world, and who comes into the world kind of like a blank slate. It means there's no template or blueprint for how you need to play certain scenes.

Movie acting is harder than doing a play. You have to be entertaining but completely natural, like Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. They weren't doing anything. Do you have any idea how hard that is? That's how good they were. It's crazy hard to be convincing and real. It's the most subtle, hardest thing there is.

Acting is the only time when I truly maintain the spontaneity that I want to be present at all times.

When I work, I really try to get absorbed in the character. Unless I want to do something playful with the camera, I'm not too worried about where the camera is or positions.