Jamie Bell Quotes

When you start out as an actor, you read a script thinking of it at its best. But that's not usually the case in general, and usually what you have to do is you have to read a script and think of it at its worst. You read it going, "OK, how bad could this be?" first and foremost. You cannot make a good film out of a bad script. You can make a bad film out of a good script, but you can't make a good film out of a bad script.

It certainly helps, I think, with some actors to understand the process of acting. You see what extraordinary pressure they're under, there's a huge circus dedicated to a particular moment and they're got to deliver and it can help that you, even if empathetically alone, understand what they're doing.

It's always hard as an actor I think to be just on the set and have the kind of confidence to be like, 'Yeah, I did that. That went perfectly. That's great.' That's more confidence than I have.

Sometimes as an actor you're struggling to make things work. That was never the case for me with [Big Little Lies script]. It just kind of flowed out.

It's odd, how those things happen to actors. A thing where you think, "I have no idea how to do this," something will happen in your life comes up and you just get it. I don't know how you get it, but actors are pretty extraordinary, in that regard. I think it's fear that happens.

People often find it surprising that actors find photo shoots difficult, because you're very concerned about what's going on externally in those things when you have to be concerned with what's going on internally as an actor.

I think it's a room full of insecure actors, which is ultimately very comforting.

Everything makes me vulnerable, you just have to use it as an actor. It's a constant balance.

I think a lot of acting is about the removal of self-consciousness. The actor is going to be in front of a lot of people, and will naturally feel self-conscious. So a lot of the preparation for that is the removal of that idea. Like you embody or are connected to this character, therefore you can present this character in a way that eventually, when you come back to see it, you feel not exactly ashamed of.

I mean God knows I've done tons of schlock during the course of my career and stuff that's been very low budget and really pressed for time, but I've never had an experience like this. I kept saying to people, "How do you do this?" I said to Susan [Lucci], "How do you do it?" I don't recall exactly what she answered me but it was something like "Close my eyes and think of England. You just do it."

I played a role. That is what actors do. But I played it too well. I went too far. And by the time I wanted to stop, to take a bow and leave the stage, it was too late.

You never know what you're in for when you take a role. When you're reading the script, you're in some café in New York and you're loving life and it sounds great because it's like reading a book. When you step into that book and you actually have to play it out, for real, it's a totally different ball game.

To be an actor, a lot of times it's a strange combination of high confidence and low self-esteem. Which is a weird combination to have, but I think it's sort of very common among actors.

You can't be trying to be funny. As an adult actor, sometimes I'll muddle it up by over-thinking things.

Every actor wants to change things up a bit. You don't want to be pigeonholed, and not just because of what the industry might think.

How as an actress are you meant to inhabit other people if you haven't lived? How are you meant to play someone who gets the bus to work or has a part-time job or whatever if I've never experienced any of it myself or if I haven't been to school? How does that make me someone that people can relate to? I don't think it's possible really.

When I'm inside the character, I feel like I'm a different person, and then when you see that character on screen and I see that it's me, I find that disappointing.

I like doing horror films. I think it's helped me as an actress because you have to run and scream and cry for so long and do ridiculous things in front of strangers, you sort of break down any barriers, you can't be embarrassed.

When you look at the piece of paper, and there's just words on there, you interpret it as the actor to whatever you think is right. There may not be the hidden meaning behind the dialogue, because you don't really get to see what's going on.

This is sort of inflection-free acting [playing Maigret], and I really wasn't sure if I could do it - you make your mind up on whether I've succeeded or not. But yes, I found it difficult when we were shooting; it was a couple of weeks before I settled into not worrying - to finding a way of delivering those lines - so my worries of many months before I think had been justified. I found it a difficult way of being.

If you're an actor and you don't act for a long time you sort of think, I wonder if I can still do it.

You need to be disciplined and you need to try to occupy a zone of acting that is always quite scary because you don't think you're doing anything.

I think all actors have a sadomasochistic streak, because acting is kind of brutal, you know.

As an actor, that's nerve-wracking enough [drunk and doing coke] because you have to do it at the right level.

As an actor, no matter what, you're at the whim of so many other people all the time.