Elizabeth Taylor Quotes

You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something in the moment.

I didn't think; I experimented.

A lot of the stuff you do as an actor - or I do, because I can't speak for everyone - is not always consciously thought out. A lot of the time, for me, it's actually just feeling stuff, and it happens all in the moment and your body reacts.

I really like to experiment. That's the only way I can work. It's instinctive.

It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.

Music is extremely intuitive, which acting too in a different way.

I suppose I've got a natural rhythm. When I was little, I used to just dance a lot and have some fun. I'd never been taught to dance. I've never been to dance school. I do my own little dance moves.

It was like baptism by fire. There was no school for studying acting. You just have to take it upon yourself to learn from your peers. It's about opening your eyes, listening, and watching.

I don't have a process; I just feel it. My book on acting would be very short.

If we knew what we were doing we wouldn't be entertaining.

My playing is all about feel. I'm completely self taught: I never took any lessons or anything.

I play by ear - I'm self-taught. And so everything I do is through that technique.

Acting has always been instinctive to me.

With filmmaking in general, I have never absorbed the traditional knowledge of film history or filmmaking. It has always been just pick up the camera and go figure it out.

I'm interested in new worlds, new universes, new challenges. I always said the only reason to make a film is not for the result but for what you learn for the next one.

When I do a take, I very often try things that I haven't planned to try to see if I can pull it off.

That is a big danger, losing your inspiration. When I work in film and television I try to do each take a little differently. I never want to do the same thing twice, because then you're not being spontaneous, you're just recreating something.

You just keep playing. If someone special comes along and organizes it in a new way, then you'll have another approach and everybody will jump on it to try to learn.

I think there are actors who are like, 'Okay, what am I doing, how am I doing it, what's the appeal? Tell me what to do, what are the exact lines from the script? Okay, I got it.' I am not that way. I would be a terrible bus driver. I'd want to be like, 'Oh, let's take this side road! Let's see what happens when we go down this back alley.'

I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote 'Search.' There was no carefully designed work plan. There was no theory that I was out to prove.

I don't theorize too much. I sort of let the experience sink in, and I have to discover what the character is by doing it, and having those thoughts that she's thinking.

Most actors spend a lot of time training themselves to be an actor. And I kind of didn't do that. I just started doin' it in front of an audience and had to deliver.

In my work, I have never had any use for anything that I have known in advance.

I'm not a trained chef, so I end up making stuff up. It either turns out brilliant or an absolute disaster. I just go for it.

A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.