Rufus Sewell Quotes

Listen to me: a family man is never a real family man. An assassin is never entirely assassin. They play a role, you understand. While a dead man, he is really dead. To be or not to be, right?

Most of our occupations are low comedy.... We must play our part duly, but as the part of a borrowed character. Of the mask and appearance we must not make a real essence, nor of what is foreign what is our very own.

Certain people do need to stay in character the whole time, and that's just what they require as a person.

Every character, no matter who you play, at times is pretending to be somebody else. People have a public face and a private face.

I've been doing this since I was 10 years old, inhabiting different people and playing different roles.

The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you're in front of a camera or when you're on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time. That, to me, is not acting.

Dandyism is a lie which reveals the truth, and the truth is that we are what we pretend to be.

As an actor, we spend so much putting the mask on and trying to be someone you're not.

Actors play different characters in every project they do. Though it has nothing to do with my craft, the red carpet gives me the opportunity to show who I really am and be myself.

In my work, I want to convince people that I'm that character. If they know everything about Lesley Manville - private life, all of that stuff - it doesn't help. So the kind of anonymity I enjoy is key.

Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.

Acting like the person I'm supposed to be has always been the easiest thing for me.

I'm not really an impersonator.

I'm not running for office. I just want people to come to my stuff and escape and see me as a character, not as anything else.

A lot of my audience are in their 50s. But they want me to pretend to continue to be pretending.

Well, you create your own persona, don't you? And you have to live with that. But the people that I meet, they don't think that I'm a lunatic. And if they do, then that's OK, because it means that I'm playing the parts all right.

I was in character all the time when I was little.

The thrill of acting is making a character real. Modeling is the opposite of real. It's being fake in front of the camera.

If you're going to pretend to be somebody you're not - which is the whole point of being a rock star - then why not just invent fake characters and have them do it all for you?

I play roles, but when I'm off stage, I always try to be myself.

I never tried to put myself in situations where I had to be anything other than what people saw on TV.

We are all doing drag. Every single person on this planet is doing it.

When I am doing a fictional show, I become someone else. Reality shows keep you close to who you really are.

You are what you pretend to be.

The more I protest that I'm not Lemony Snicket, and that I'm Daniel Handler instead, the more it becomes clear to the audience that I am in fact Lemony Snicket, that I am in fact standing in front of them.