Abigail Breslin Quotes

I do sometimes wonder if people think, 'Oh we'll have her because she cries well.' The odd thing is I don't really know where it comes from. If the script is good, I find I can usually cry without too much trouble - in fact, the hard thing is trying to get me to stop. But I'm not really a crier in real life. I'm not a dramatic person, you see.

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.

I find doing emotional scenes very tough, it is very challenging for me.

I would love to do a period piece. That would be really cool. And also like to do something transformative and have to transform yourself physically to become that character. Any interesting, fun roles, I'm attracted to.

It's fun to play characters in songs. I can just cheat a little bit... be this person for just a small amount of time and just help vent that idea.

Each role you play, they set a bar of challenges that you meet. And in the past, I've played characters that emotionally expressed themselves a bit more in a physical way. It was a joy, actually.

It was a lot of fun to play a character [in Swiss Army Man] with no inhibitions, and with no knowledge of the world, and who comes into the world kind of like a blank slate. It means there's no template or blueprint for how you need to play certain scenes.

When you're acting and you need to cry, you want to put yourself in a position where you're trying not to cry, because that is generally what people try and do. They try to hold on to their emotions, they don't want to lose them.

It was difficult for me to feel my feelings, so I just buried them. Then I found that acting was a way for me to get them out. But now that I'm a reasonably sane adult, acting is more about my trying to engage other people: Acting is cathartic for the viewer as well.

Acting is probably the greatest therapy in the world. You can get a lot stuff out of you on the set so you don't have to take it home with you at night. It's the stuff between the lines, the empty space between those lines which is interesting.

In a weird way, that's the beauty of being an actor. You get to live out things that you're afraid of, and you get to say, 'Well, maybe I can get to the end of it and survive it intact and I can be the hero of my own story.' It's kind of a way of exorcising fear.

I feel that one of the hardest things in acting is the way you need to switch your emotions.

To be an actress and act crazy is really fun for me, to be able to be acting like you'd never be able to act in your real life and scream and freak out. It's an interesting test for an actor.

I have had the opportunity to work with Andy Lincoln a lot. He's got a remarkable process. He just has these ways of sinking into the scene and into character that are very physical. He'll make these sounds and these grunts and these moans... I don't know what it is that he's channeling! It lets you know it's okay for you to do that, too.

I don't have an 'actor cry.'

I was a teenager and it was tough years for me. Being able to bring myself into a character and live in somebody else's world was so important for me emotionally. I couldn't express things well in my normal life. I was so overwhelmed by my emotions.

I've played a lot of bad guys, and I'm pretty good at leaving my work at the office. And I look at acting as having a certain sort of therapeutic nature to it.

I'm no Method actor. I've tried staying in character, and it's just exhausting.

The worst is when I know I'm going to have to cry in a scene.

A lot of people say don't let bad vibes into the studio, but I love to. If you're having a bad day, write a song that feels like that.

On stage, you can bring all those strong emotions that you don't have the opportunity to live. You don't want to die for love every day, but on stage, you can.

In all the characters I play, not matter how, it's like as if there is something within me that's released. I also show my best ability and put in my best efforts.

I always try to do something very different with each character because that's why I like to do this, because I can become someone else completely and it's fun.

For an actor, for me, I love being able to tap into just heavy emotions. I don't need to be balling in every scene, but I just love to feel different emotions when heading to set. It's a lot of fun to play with.

I get some acting jobs. I like it other than the constant slipping in and out of character.