Christian McKay Quotes

You are always invested in a film, but there is always a different feeling you get when you are portraying a character that is based on real life and you are re-telling events that actually took place.

There is always pressure playing a real living person and even pressure developing a character from scratch.

In many ways, playing a real person is slightly easier because you have a road map. When you're playing someone fictitious, there's myriad ways in. With a real person, there's boundaries, and that sometimes makes the work easier.

You can say to actors that you've got to be the character and really get into it, but you have to make it realistic by bringing an element of yourself into it.

You've got to be honest with yourself aesthetically about who could you play. You want to artistically be true to that character.

'Funny People' is my favorite performance of myself to date. Even though it's a comedy and there are serious moments, I really felt like Leo felt like a real person. It didn't feel like I was playing myself. Whether it's a comedy or drama, I just try to make it as realistic as possible.

I think every role you take on, you should take on the responsibility of doing the best representation of that person or that character or that role. When it is a human being that has actually existed, and it is a person that people know of, yeah, you feel an even more amount of pressure to do a good job.

It's always very daunting to play someone who actually existed. You have to honor that, and be specific and accurate and try to make people believe that you're that guy, which is really hard.

When you're playing a character in a book, there's already a lot of pressure because all of the millions of people who have read the series have been able to envision and become very attached to the characters.

It's hard to actually take details from your personal life and apply them a scene because, as much as you can identify with a feeling, you just get muddled. As soon as you start bringing your own stuff in, it's like, 'No, that's not right.' You're playing a different person. You can relate, but you have to leave that stuff at the door.

When you're playing a real person, there's a balance between playing the person in the script and playing the person as he was in life. You have to be respectful and true to who that person was, but at the same time tell the story in the film.

You're playing a character in a drama who happens to be based on someone who existed. It's never going to 'be' that person, but it's based on someone well-known, and you want to create enough of that person for it not to be a distraction.

You draw on whatever's relevant to the part you're playing; it makes it more personal.

Playing a real person, it does add an extra level of thoughtfulness. You're portraying someone who actually existed, so instead of saying, like, 'OK, I think this would make the scene better,' it's more a question of, 'What do I think the real Jeffrey Dahmer would do?'

It's one thing to play a character that's fictitious - it's quite another to play somebody that is alive and well.

Sometimes it's hard to play someone so similar to you, because you can muddy the character. Often, it's easier to play someone further away from you, because it's clearer who they are.

I actually think actors both are drawn to playing real-life historical people and are terrified.

There's a lot of traps you can fall into when you are playing someone who existed. If it comes out just as impersonation, that's bad; it has to be an embodiment. You have to live it, not just sound and look like it.

Playing a real-life character is definitely a lot more responsibility than one that is fictionalized.

These people I play are not usually wish-fulfillment characters.

I don't know how to play a character unless I love him.

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

It's interesting trying to make something as truthful as possible, but playing someone who is still alive is quite a weird thing.

It's challenging to play a real-life character because you know that it existed in the history and you have certain parameters to follow and stay within.

Doing 'Mamma Mia' was scary full stop, so playing a young Colin Firth was even more intimidating. I just had to keep reminding myself that I was playing Harry and not Colin Firth, which psychologically felt better.