Lindsay Duncan Quotes

It's bad writing, however naturalistic it's written, that's where you have to do your best acting.

My only job as an actor is to try and understand the character and, to the best of my ability, bring this character to life.

There's something about actors - not stars, but actors - if they have the character, and someone is pushing and shoving them to be the best they can be, they enjoy that.

For me, being an actress, my responsibility is not to pay attention to all the noise around me and to pay attention to the script and the director and protect the character and try to tell her story the best I can.

It's down to the actors to show the writers the potential of the character.

I have only recently got interested in film, and it is a strange way of working in many ways. But actually, when it is at its best, it's quite an extraordinary way of working between a director and an actor, to really explore an inner life.

I only want to work with actors that really get it and make it work. I didn't want it to be a star-driven thing anymore.

I had an acting teacher tell me once that if you're playing a car salesman, you don't want to be an OK car salesman, you want to play the best car salesman.

I do not use any set methods, not even The Method. The character after all is in the lines.

It's your job as an actor to fill out the blanks. I love doing that. To fill in the bones.

I have just gained a deeper and deeper respect for acting and the whole art of it because you're really trying to live a life and to do the best justification for it.

The writer creates the role on the page and then the actor takes it and makes it their own.

I really think that studying theater early on really helped me to be able to identify how to get into a character, because it's such a mysterious thing. Learning objective acting in the beginning of my career was the best thing I could have ever done.

As an actor, I've always found that my job is not to judge the content in which I've agreed to perform in. What I try to do is just find the truth in every moment that they've written.

I've always found as an actress that the best thing to do in film or TV or theater is just to lose yourself in it. Think of the story, the character, the worlds we're in, and forget everything else.

As an actor, I've always been interested in making sure I can perform the role and the lines in the way the writer intended.

As an actor, you are always someone else's tool. You can have a connection with them, and you can share their point of view, but ultimately, you are helping them reflect.

I feel character description from a book can mislead you and actually make you fall off course when you're representing a character using a script.

In terms of pure acting, my role model has always been Philip Seymour Hoffman; I really always loved what he did. I love what Mark Ruffalo does. When I was younger, I liked Cate Blanchett a lot. These are all actors who are given stories and allowed to carry the whole story.

During the inception of 'Zindagi Gulzar Hai,' we studied the characters and the script in depth so that we could imbibe the essence of it in our performance.

As an actor, I have always felt, everything is available in the script. If there is anything you feel the script lacks, you can have a discussion with the director and point out those.

I am trained in theatre, and so I take time to study and get into the skin of a character.

I am open to any good script and the character I can do justice to.

I believe how a character eventually turns out is completely attributable to an actor. Even with a meaty role, if I am enacting it as an accessory, I will look like an accessory.

The rehearsal process is the biggest gift you can give to the director and to yourself as an actor because it allows you to shape the character and the scenes.