Alia Shawkat Quotes

It is something actresses need to go through and I think they look forward to being naked in a movie. I don't know why, but it is something you need to exhaust from yourself.

When I have to do a scene where I feel vulnerable as an actress, I always grow from those experiences, so I welcome them. Even though it may not feel amazing at first. You have to embrace it and use it to improve yourself.

The fact that the movie's called Norman and I play Norman was just a weighted responsibility that I never experienced before. I just tried to be prepared as possible. I think that's really the only way to go about it, from what I heard from people who have to do this a lot.

It's funny: By putting up walls, you think you're protecting yourself, but you get to live less. You're depriving yourself of so much if you're trying to be too aware of what you're putting out there. If you feel someone breaking those walls down, let them. Those are the people that you need to find in life, rather than people that you're just comfortable with.

I'm not a great fan of green screen. It's not much fun for actors. It's great for directors and technical people and cameramen.

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

I went to NYU for acting, for six years. I thought acting was the easy way out or in because I didn't put in enough effort in school, being a crazy kid in college. But, I was good at it, so that was the other side of it. I would love to direct. What I've learned from being on set is more how to deal with actors than even the visual part of it all.

When you're playing the devil, you're playing the ultimate evil. There are no boundaries. In doing a film in the horror genre or a psychological thriller, you're really pushed as an actress, you're pushed way outside of your comfort zone. Emotionally, mentally, and physically. That's when things really get fun.

In February 1953, I was making a second picture with Jeff Chandler, one called War Arrow. Jeff was a real sweetheart, but acting with him was like acting with a broomstick.

I never ever played the lead role in a play, except at school. I guess the industry that we're in, boys that look like me don't get the lead role.

I want brave people. Fearless ones. A good actor just goes out and leaps off the edge and develops wings on his way down, hopefully. That's the kind of people I really enjoy working with. Playing safe isn't much fun. I like danger. It's controlled danger, always, and that's why I hope I don't lure too many good actors down into the pits with me, because I hope they maintain their own unique talents.

Cowards, I believe, are people who are afraid to embrace what they want or need in a natural, honest way.

I love getting nervous, because it's also a form of excitement and it makes me feel alive, you know? I like that feeling. I've always liked that feeling. People who don't get nervous before they perform are no fun.

As an actor, no matter what, you're at the whim of so many other people all the time.

Shyness is a curious thing, because, like quicksand, it can strike people at any time, and also, like quicksand, it usually makes its victims look down.

You know I grew up on the Batman movies, and they had some terrific actors in, but you know a lot of the other ones - it wasn't always the case that you had people the caliber of Jeff Bridges or Robert Downey, so to kind of show up and work with Jeremy Renner or Robert or with Mark Ruffalo, any of them, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, the caliber of people you're acting with, to me, is really fun. From the first day I started doing scenes with Robert, it's been one of the funnest experiences I've ever had.

Tom Hanks was really great [the 'Burbs']. The director, Joe Dante, was wonderful. We filmed it here during the summer, every day at Universal. Even the food was good - I mean it was junk but it was really good. The whole thing was like some ideal summer-school experience. It may not have been the best movie ever, but it was certainly the most fun.

I have never been nervous in all my life and I have no patience with people who are. If you know what you are going to do, you have no reason to be nervous. And I knew what I was going to do.

I don't know if I was always an open person, but I think stand-up comics specifically have this way of running towards embarrassing things - whereas regular people tend to run away - because the embarrassing story is always going to be the really funny story.

I tried [being a mogul]. It bores me. I don't really want to produce other people's movies. Because they're either grown-up filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh or Kathryn Bigelow that didn't really need me - and I've produced both of them. It's fun to sit around with them and be collegial, but they don't need me. They can make the film without me. I make my own stuff. There are tons and tons of other things I'm interested in that have nothing to do with movies or are documentary projects.

Like all actors, I was open to taking on new challenges, including those outside my comfort zone.

I haven't read the comic book. I didn't even know there was one until about halfway though. Helen Mirren and I were talking about that actually, who also felt kind of silly. When we had to run she was like, 'Oh God, we're both going to get fired.' The running sequences, it's a particular kind of humiliation because it's fun.

She [Virginia Madsen] and I had a really long relationship after that movie ['Class'] I love her, and I can imagine it was not much fun to do that big sequence with a bunch of laughing, ogling frat-boy actors. I mean, can you imagine putting up with me, [John] Cusack, Alan Ruck, and Andrew McCarthy at 18?

To force yourself out of the comfort zone, the main ingredient is trying to work in a world where you haven't been before, that you don't know the rules of. And that involves a lot of research, so you begin to see where the other people have been, but you are starting from as vulnerable and as low a point as possible.

The trouble with audition process is, when you're an unemployed actor, it's the only time you get to act, and it can be quite fun. If you feel in control of the material and you feel that the people are pleased to see you and are excited by you auditioning for them, it can be a really rewarding process. But it can also be a very humiliating process.