Kristin Lehman Quotes

You have an awareness of your body and how to use it and I think that if you can embody a character physically it's another really useful tool.

I would absolutely recommend for actors to start in the theater because it establishes a foundation in your craft that you can build off of.

I think there is no better training than being onstage because here's the thing: the theater requires you to act with your whole body. I think acting with your whole body gives you a root, and you can build from there.

I would suggest it to any actor to get some movement classes because it really, really makes a difference.

Actors only have our bodies, voices, and the text. So I think actors need to have a fit and in-tune body. I was always very disciplined in wanting to have that. That's one of my favorite things - playing a role with a physical requirement.

As an actor, you need everything you can get to be truly scary and truly memorable.

I am a proud participant of the Spencer Tracy School of Acting: Know your lines, don't bump into the furniture.

That is one of the first things my family, my mother and my grandfather, had taught me about acting: 'Use your eyes!' Not being able to do that physical aspect of it, and having to put it all into your voice? That was a little bit of a challenge.

My advice to young actors is probably to do some theatre; definitely do that. I keep running into these actors who have never been on stage, and it's invaluable for an actor. What you will learn about yourself is huge.

I went through this realization that acting, at its heart, is the ability to manipulate your own emotions.

Actors always start with the voice and language. That's wrong. They should start with the body. The body is an actor's most important resource.

Good actors are always looking for props. They're looking for behavior. It makes it a lot easier. You're not solely dependent of what's coming out of your mouth. You're also less self-conscious, less aware of the camera.

One of the most important things for an actor is to know who you are.

I feel if I'm playing an athlete, I know I have to prepare. I need to get that body language right, I need to walk like an athlete, look like an athlete. If I'm playing a musician, I need to know how to play an instrument.

Most of the great practitioners of the art of acting know exactly what they're doing; even in the best, most successful moments, when they let go of the awareness of what they are doing, they still, somewhere deep inside their body, know what they're doing. There is a craft.

I play a lot of characters where I don't even speak in my own voice. I learned about focus and I learned to trust that things can work when they're not heightened and that it's interesting when things are pared down.

Because I didn't go to drama school, I didn't start in the business with any toolbox apart from enthusiasm and instinct. I'd throw everything at a part and sometimes realise that I had hit my limits.

Shakespeare teaches you how to act. You come out of this process as a better actor. It's just the nature of the words he writes.

My acting range has always been something between the two extremes of 'raises left eyebrow' and 'raises right eyebrow.'

Vary the pace... is one of the foundations of all good acting.

I think it's incumbent on actresses to bring something else to the part which isn't in the script.

There's no doubt in the world that directing makes you a better actor. Me, anyway. There's no doubt in the world that it makes me a more collaborative actor.

There are times when I consciously give the character something physical - a walk, the way he sits, how he talks, or his lack of physicality, which is like a physicality.

The difference between working with actors that have put their time in the theater and just straight film and television actors is that you trust theater actors a lot more. You know that they're seriously more trained than anyone else because theater is the best place to grow as an actor.

I never pretended to be a great actor.