Carey Mulligan Quotes

You can't really judge characters, because that's when it gets really hard to play them.

As an actor, it's really exciting and challenging to play a character which is much older than your actual age.

Everything that you do is a challenge. And acting is just building up your concentration and being able to listen and to do the ridiculous.

There's a certain amount of empathy you need to have, and I've also never been one to call it in. I know some roles are easier for certain people, especially when there's the sequel and a third and a fourth one.

Every actor has to love and loathe the character he plays.

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

When I was acting, I got trained in creating a character as a three-dimensional person. If you're doing it right you should be able to draw an audience into the character's world and make them feel their fears.

I think most actors are very impressionable, and that's part of what we do is soak up other's behavior.

Sometimes I'm playing somebody that I may have a problem with. Your job as an actor is not to go only play things that make you look good.

Playing characters I don't relate to are a big challenge for me.

I love observing people. Each face tells so many stories. It lets me understand emotions, and that, in turn, helps me apply my skills as an actor.

I've played horrible people and done horrible things, and there were moments on 'The Knick' where it was super uncomfortable - some of the things I had to do and say.

I get to play some zany, multilayered, very complex individuals.

I played a father a few times. You don't have to shoot heroin to play a heroin addict ... I'm not running for president but I could play a candidate. Most of the time, you don't really have to have those things in your life to understand what they're like.

Acting is about people. Other people. Otherwise, you're not acting, you're doing monologues.

I've been the victim a lot, so I've often played the person who's getting raped or murdered or abused. And so, to actually be raping and murdering and abusing people is a whole different kind of challenge, and one that was very difficult, at times.

As an actor in the theater you're taught that you never play a bad guy. You have to love who you are. You can't say, "Oh, I'm a bad guy." How do you play that?

In order to be able to cooperate with a child, you have to come down to below their level in order to communicate with them. Actors are also like children.

Each character has their own challenges. The challenge to doing one scene is your whole history of who you are and your relationships, you only have this one shot.

I did not think I had what it took to be an actor, because most of the actors that I encountered were people who were very narcissistic and I thought since I lacked narcissism to become an actor because that's what it took. It was more of a social experiment for me to walk in the shoes of other people that I found interesting.

So much is made of good, strong roles for women. Actually, it's really interesting playing vul­nerable people as well.

Central to being an actor is pretending, and the adventure of it all. That's why you become a junkie for different kinds of situations.

Acting is a challenge at times. I mean, when you have scenes where you're jumping into a mascot bear to travel back in time, and you try to make that seem real. For me, I'm a person that has a pretty wild imagination, just kind of letting that run wild and sort of just doing the best you can to not feel stupid.

I enjoy being an actor largely; in part at least, because you get to walk a mile in another person's shoes, you get to see what their skin is like. The other good thing is you get to leave it.

I've never been trained as an actor. I'm no Phillip Seymour Hoffman or Johnny Depp.