Christopher Eccleston Quotes

We ask actors to come to work ready to open a vein, to be emotionally thin-skinned. If someone screams, 'What about my coffee?' it's not about the coffee; it's because they're working in an emotional state. It ain't easy being an actor.

The actor already comes with emotions to the scene: fear, the fear of being in front of the camera. It is this fear that spurs the emotion of the scene. I too am afraid; I don't know exactly what I am searching for. On the set, we are all participating in this fear together.

Other actors like to rehearse on film-they like 30 or 40 takes. When you get an actor like that, it becomes difficult for me because I'm ready to quit after number two.

I lack confidence as an actor.

Actors want to impress at the beginning, so you take advantage of that by suddenly saying, 'Right, you're here for two weeks.' What you're doing is creating a siege mentality.

I think I do have a way of predicting - not always accurately - what is a nerve-wracking day for actors, what may be a difficult scene or a difficult moment, how small - and it may be down to one line - a thing maybe that is upsetting or undermining a performance.

I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That's the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein.

I know what actors fear, what they like; I know how to get things out of them and I listen to them better, since I've been there.

I do think that's so much a part of what being a director is - in working with actors - to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.

Playing Isabella in 'Measure for Measure' pushed me to my limits. Janet Suzman was directing, and she was very hard on me. I went through phases of not liking her at the time, but I loved her for it in the end.

All I have to do is be me on stage. But acting, I have to be someone else, and walk how they would walk and blink how they would blink. I used to talk about it bad like, 'Aw man, that person made $10 million a movie?' But now I understand why they do. I get it now.

I found acting tough; it takes a lot out of you if you have no technique.

When I audition, I understand what it takes and the insecurities that come with it. If I do anything, I put actors at ease. I used to tell directors who weren't actors, the best thing they could do was take an acting class for a couple of months. Just to understand.

Early on, someone had told me, 'You know, the camera can always tell when you're lying.' And, Jesus, that intimidated me. 'The camera can always tell? How am I going to do this?' Until one day I thought, 'Wait a minute, acting is lying. Acting is all about lying.'

When you turn up for work, especially with looking down the barrel of a show, you're hoping the person you're acting opposite of is going to be on your kind of crazy wavelength.

As an actor, I still don't really know exactly what I am doing most of the time.

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

Being an actor really, really strengthens me as a director. There's just a certain type of understanding that comes from having been there and knowing how much is really being asked of actors that helps me.

At the end of the day, you're handing your performance over. If a director says after a take, 'You know what, try it just really angry. Just get furious'... you're like, 'Well, I don't know if I want to give you that because I don't know if I trust what you're going to do with it.'

I find that a lot of the good acting comes out when you're physically being pushed: your brain turns off and just deals with the situation at hand. You get to a point where you're exhausted at the end of the day, but I quite like that.

Established actors will challenge you if they don't agree with the way you are taking it, and you have to argue it. But with a younger cast, they are more likely to wonder whether what they are doing is okay instead of trying to second guess the director. That helps push you.

Now that I'm acting, I've realized that I don't have a lot of barriers. Certain actors have a hard time with anger or with joy or with whatever, and, I don't know, I don't seem to have those barriers.

I'd love to be one of those guys who could be like, 'Yeah, it's really exhausting,' but the truth is I'm not method. I don't take roles home.

I'm not a natural-born actor. So it's been a very slow learning curve for me.

I'm still learning and trying to become a better actor. I still feel insecurity.