Judd Nelson Quotes

For me, personality acting is not that interesting. I don't want to just be myself.

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

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.

I don't act in the way other actresses act, in terms of building or creating a character. I don't transform myself into the role, I invest myself in the role.

I always enjoy impersonating my characters in the first-person singular.

I like to try to change things up a bit in the way that actors such as Philip Seymour Hoffman or Michael Fassbender did and do.

I don't usually like talking about acting or what my process is, and all those kinds of things, because I don't necessarily think it's helpful to talk about how I do my job.

I know, because I tried all sorts of ways of being in character, and the best way is to be totally straight.

There are a lot of actors who will sit here and talk to you about characters - 'He does this, and she's a really interesting character because she does this.' I'm not like that at all. I'm not an actory actor.

When I'm playing a character, I don't wear perfume.

Any good actor is a character actor.

I think I would not be described as a character actor in that I don't take on characteristics which are very alien to me.

I love the simplicity of Kevin Spacey's work. He really does a subtle interpretation of every character, and that's kind of my style of acting when it comes to dramatic roles.

All good actors are very bright. You can't be stupid and a good actor. You may be inarticulate, you may not be highly educated, but all good actors are quick-witted, some of them dazzlingly so. All you do is guide them.

Since I was from the theater, that's how I learned how to go through the process of being a character. That's how I learned, and that's what I was comfortable doing. And then, the first feature films, I'm sure I was no fun because I did not want to be spontaneous in that filmic way that really can work for you.

The way I approach acting when there's a real life character, it's sort of like a Venn diagram. What I come up with is some amalgam of the two of us.

When you get to set, you don't try to play the plot; you just play the character.

I've heard of actors like De Niro and Streep who stay in character all day long. And Daniel Day-Lewis did it for 'My Left Foot.' I don't do that myself.

For better or worse, I don't necessarily categorize myself as a method actor; I'm not going to make claims that I stayed in character 24/7.

I like method actors who don't focus on the glamorous side, but on realistic acting.

When you go into the realm of a double role, you have to take it to another level to make it believable.

My acting technique is a combination of a lot of different ones. A lot of it is Meisner.

I'm not an actor that works in front of a mirror, who tries to repeat her actions or whatever.

Every character lives in ever actor and if you're doing your job right, you're just accessing that part of your fantasy life. I can kill someone just as quickly as I can have sex with someone. You can switch that instinct, no matter what - you can pretend anything.

I don't tend to spend the whole day in the personality of the person I'm playing.