Martin Freeman Quotes

I'm not really an impersonator.

I've spent all my life playing roles that illustrious people have played before me.

There is a very thin line dividing characterisation from impersonation. I've to make sure I don't cross over into mimicry.

I've got to tell you, I've played real characters before and people always bring up this word 'impersonation,' and I'm never entirely sure what it means.

I didn't sound anything like Capote at the screen test. It was more like Bob Dylan. In his early years. With the flu.

Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me.

It's going to be very interesting to see somebody playing me.

When I present those clip shows and movie mistakes and things, the persona the writers adopt for me is unimpressed, superior, very sarcastic - I'm not any of that. I can do it, but that's not what I'm like.

I really enjoy picking up the physical rhythm of somebody else, speaking with their voice. I've never done in anything in my own voice, and I can't imagine what that would be like. It would be weird, I guess.

Adopting mannerisms is called mimicry. That is not a good way to do things. You don't start to imitate somebody, the way he walks and talks, that is a very irrelevant element of acting.

When I do an impression of someone or when I am pretending to be someone else, something freaky happens: I feel the person I am mimicking behind my eyeballs. Their head is sitting perfectly inside mine, helping me project a false self out on to the world. And it's not always a choice.

I've been doing this since I was 10 years old, inhabiting different people and playing different roles.

I've been told that I'm good at impersonating people.

So I sat down with him and portrayed more the side of the character he needed to see. Which is what I do when I go in for an interview for a part I like. As much as you think you're dealing with creative people, they see you for what your image is out there.

Roles make the actor.

Look up the word role in the dictionary and you'll see it means playing a part. That's why I call myself a real model.

As actors, we get to hide. You can change your hair and your accent, and it's not you. You have tricks, these masks.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Most of my life I have played a lot of famous people but most of them were dead so you have a poetic license.

The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you're in front of a camera or when you're on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time. That, to me, is not acting.

I think it's fun playing a part that lots of other people have played, in a way.

There's nobody else that can double me - except for a doll.

It's funny - if you impersonate somebody, they have no idea it's them.

We ape, we mimic, we mock. We act.

As an actor, we spend so much putting the mask on and trying to be someone you're not.