Jessica Alba Quotes

I have been blessed with roles that allow me to express something very personal at a specific time in my life. I seek them out; acting is my therapy.

I've learned a lot with every character, everything from being a cop, to a lawyer to a tattoo artist. And underneath that stuff, I've been really able to find myself through the characters. It's served as a cheap form of emotional therapy.

One of the things I love about acting is that it reveals a certain something about yourself, but it doesn't reveal your own personal story.

It's always great to play a character that goes against the grain. Finn defies what people think when they think of stormtroopers.

Definitely when you get handed roles like Joel in 'The Last of Us,' that's something that will change your life, and I learned so much from that role.

I've realized over the years I either play very good people or very bad people, and I think I always enjoy the very bad people more.

The protagonists that I've played tend to be people who make trouble. Or even if they don't make it, they certainly disrupt things. It's fun to do that in life as well. But I don't think I ever played myself.

There was a little of this, 'Oh, you're such a sweet girl!' That's a wonderful thing to have in life; I don't mind it at all for life. But I remember, the first role I was ever cast in as a not-so-sweet-girl, I was so happy.

I wasn't perfect and didn't have it together. I felt alone. So through acting, I decided to be a shape shifter and with every role become the character instead of being myself. It meant about 10 years of no one knowing I was the same person in every movie.

I'm a very placid human being. I don't want to kill anyone. I guess I have played a lot of bad people in my career, so frustrations or angst can come out in any given role.

Doing 'Roadies' was a big release for me. I play this character named Wes who's the most pure, innocent form of who I was when I was eighteen searching for something.

Usually, I play the bad guy, so it's been a pleasant break to play a good guy.

I've grown up watching Shah Rukh Khan and never really imagined that one day I will get to play the lead opposite him.

I don't want to just play the same thing. But with The Red Road, no one has ever seen me like that. No one really even knows that I smile, have a personality and have a sense of humor.

I like playing an array of different roles. From the fun, comedic roles to the serious roles. It's always fun to play the role that either closely represents your own personality or the role that is completely opposite of yourself.

I was 19 years when I got into acting training classes at a TV station and then I found a way to express my feelings. My father left us when I was a kid and I just shut down all of my emotions. I wasn't talkative; I didn't know how to communicate with people. I tried to separate from people. After I got into the classes I found a way of expressing myself through characters. I can cry behind a character, I can shout behind a character and it became a relief. And it's fun.

Just coming to terms with the fact that I got to play April Wheeler [Revolutionary Road] and Hanna Schmitz [The Reader] in one year, let alone in my lifetime. I'm very, very aware of how rare that is as an opportunity for any one person. I can't tell you how much I've been able to take away from these experiences creatively. I really, really learned so much about acting, about myself... all of those things. It's difficult to talk about the actor's process without sounding like an arrogant asshole but they really were very challenging.

As human beings we have this immediate gateway - you’ve just to articulate exactly the way that you’re exiled, exactly the way that you don’t belong, exactly the way that you can’t love, exactly the way that you can’t move ... and you’re on your way again. You’re on your way home. If you can just say exactly the way that you’re imprisoned - the door swings open.

I never played a rich man, I never played a prince. And to play a sailor or longshoreman you had to make your dance more eclectic and varied, but still keep it indigenous to your nationality, upbringing, and background.

Sometimes they come to you and it's a small role, so it's about the experience and the journey and mixing with people you know you will learn from. Or sometimes it's a scene in a movie that you think, 'I just have to play this person.'

This is not the 19th century, where actors are expected to play completely opposite roles. We're not typecast, but we're brought in because somebody thinks that it's a good fit, so you make it a better fit.

Sophia Loren plays peasants. I play ladies.

There was a certain moment. I was about 61 - two, three or four, and I got a script. And I sent it back to the producer saying - "I don't wanna do it. The part's too small." And he sent it back to me, he said, "You shouldn't read the lover. You should read the father.

Every actor, I don't care what they say, their roles are a lot more interesting than we are, and at the end of the day, it's still entertainment or fantasy. I think we can learn a lot from the characters we play and I find that the characters are even more noble than myself.

I'm aware of the power of looks. I've wanted to play roles that have gone to much better-looking people and you just think 'Oh well, that's the pin up guy's an actor like my friend James Mcavoy, who's gorgeous on screen. I'm not that. But at least I don't have to worry about taking precious care of my face because it's my commodity. That's a great freedom. I'm not afraid of being heinous for the sake of a part