Scoot McNairy Quotes

I think people pick up on that. You use personal stuff and mix it all in - I definitely pull on that stuff in my acting.

When I started out as an actor, I thought, Here's what I have to say; how shall I say it? I began to understand that what I do in the scene is not as important as what happens between me and the other person. And listening is what lets it happen. It's almost always the other person who causes you to say what you say next. You don't have to figure out how you'll say it. You have to listen so simply, so innocently, that the other person brings about a change in you that makes you say it and informs the way you say it.

It's sort of the most important thing for acting, is to listen to the person you're dealing with.

The more and more I work with really great actors, the more it's about opening yourself up to what they bring.

Sometimes a scene works and acting is the easiest thing in the world and you don't have to do much of anything - just enjoy yourself and listen to the other actor. When it doesn't work, then every actor has different ways of dealing with the impasse. Sometimes you use memories from the past. Whatever. It depends from job to job.

When you act a scene with Sidney Poitier, he listens intently to every word you say. You can feel your words hit him. He makes the scene utterly real.

Maybe I'm a better actor when I know there's going to be an older woman involved.

When you act with phenomenal actors, it makes your job much easier because all you have to do is react.

Any actor I admire and enjoy working with - Sergi Lopez as the bad guy in 'Pan's Labyrinth,' or the little girl who played young Mako in 'Pacific Rim,' it makes no difference - I like actors with a very strong centre.

They were always my favourite scenes working with Don Warrington. He's such a brilliant actor, he has such a presence, you don't have to act with him you just react you know he's so good.

Initially, it took me time to realise that I am sharing screen space with Irrfan Khan. But when I started working with him, a lot of times I would end up laughing in a scene.

One of the things I love about acting is other actors, looking into their eyes, and working off them, and listening and responding to them.

Acting is about listening, and that's something that took me awhile. You almost don't have to learn your lines, if you listen to what they're saying and move it along.

What I can say, categorically, is that working with Sarah Paulson and Kathy Bates will have been the most formative experience for me, as an actor, for the rest of my life.

It helps to be more interested in other people than you are in yourself. Inhabiting other characters is what I do.

It is a treat to do scenes where you silently enact.

Empathy is much bigger than sympathy. When the character is empathised with, that means you have succeeded as an actor. So even if it's a villain, the audiences don't hate you... they understand why you have turned into a villain.

As an actor, you generally want to see the other actor's face.

All which isn't singing is mere talking... and all talking's to oneself alone but the very song of (as mountains feel and lovers) singing is silence.

You can't do what you've been asked to do unless you do the best you can. And roughly speaking, the best you can do is to be very available as a character and actor to the people you're acting with. That's equally important, whether the camera's on the other person or on you.

For the introvert, conversation can be a very limited forum for self expression. When a song moves you, a writer gets you or a theory enlightens you, you and its creator are connecting in a realm beyond sight or speech.

Listening is totally different from hearing. Hearing, anybody who is not deaf can do. Listening is a rare art, one of the last arts. Listening means not only hearing with the ears but hearing from the heart, in utter silence, in absolute peace, with no resistance. One has to be vulnerable to listen, and one has to be in deep love to listen. One has to be in utter surrender to listen.

A better idea than my own is to listen.

The secret of understanding poetry is to hear poetry's words as what they are: the full self's most intimate speech, half waking, half dream. You listen to a poem as you might listen to someone you love who tells you their truest day. Their words might weep, joke, whirl, leap. What's unspoken in the words will still be heard. It's also the way we listen to music: You don't look for extractable meaning, but to be moved.

Listening is the key to total concentration. You listen as the character would listen, closing the door on everything else. Then you are ready to respond.