David Suchet Quotes

I don't act in the way other actresses act, in terms of building or creating a character. I don't transform myself into the role, I invest myself in the role.

As far as 'Jane Pittman,' I don't know that I could verbalize, to this day, what I felt once I got into that role. I did a tremendous amount of research. I need to feel as though I am in the person's skin.

Getting in and out of a character takes its own time for me.

It kind of varies. I don’t have a method yet. It depends on the script and the character I think I need. I’ve worked with acting coaches, researched roles, and channeled different parts of myself. It’s on a case-by-case for me, right now.

As an actor, you're used to putting on characters, taking them off, becoming someone else, doing your research, and working on that.

So many actors get caught up in their technique, and to be honest, I see it really getting in the way. I see them forcing things. I definitely do my best work when I'm free of that. But I think as an actor, I work really hard in preparing the roles. I spend like 90 percent of my waking moments walking around thinking: "What does this character do? What is his relationship with so-and-so?" Always, really. Too much!

I'm not an actor who approaches films doing a lot of research. I do zero research, unless it's a film where I'm playing a mock version of someone who already existed. Then, you've got to do a lot of research.

I didn't play the Ghost Rider in the first movie. That was a stuntman. In this film, the Ghost Rider feels much more alive because I did put some thought into how he should walk and into how he should move. I was so into the character, in fact, that I would paint my face with white and black makeup to look like a skull. And I put on blacked-out contact lenses, so I almost looked like an Afro-New Orleanian voodoo icon by the name of Baron Samedi. Oh man, I would walk around the set without saying a word to anybody, and I could see the fear in my co-stars' and co-directors' eyes.

While playing complex characters you're staying in the same place but you're departing with your mind and soul and educating yourself until you can really understand such huge worlds. Those are the roles that keep loyal to the authenticity of what people are, and not caricatures. It's something that requires me to prepare for three, four months. I love the process of it, rather than, "Okay, I'm ready, I'm set with the wardrobe that somebody else chose for me."

Because I was able to submerge myself into the character, I didn't have to go back and forth. You don't have to work hard to bring emotions. It all just comes naturally, you're there living it.

I make a playlist for every character I portray. Music plays a huge part in helping me understand a character. Every time I get a new role, I will take a chunk of time to just sit and listen to a bunch of songs and select the ones that make sense in my mind for that character. I can't even explain how much it helps me.

I definitely think it exercises an interesting muscle, auditioning for bad parts and trying to figure out how to make it real. I don't know what I'm talking about now.

I think substitution is a huge part of acting, but I don't personalise my work that much.

You hear stories of intense actors who can't shed their character and who don't know who they are for a week or two after. I'm not that guy, man.

I got into acting for the chance to be many different people and many different characters. I love hiding in a role and doing the research. If there is an opportunity to change my body, I will change my body. I'll slip in and disguise myself in a role. That is a really big treat for me.

I don't shoot two films at the same time. I finish one character and get into another character because I change my look for every film. It's difficult, but I enjoy doing that.

In terms of jumping into a character's skin, I try to immerse myself in the role as much as possible to bring me closer to them. All I do is what's required to achieve what I want to achieve.

Actors who say they can dive inside a character are either schizophrenic or lying.

I'm always happier and a better actor when I can really lose myself in a character and become somebody else.

I'm always practicing lines, researching, trying to be fresh, and fully trying to become the characters I play. That's how I roll.

I could not be one of those actors who stays in character all day long. I'd go mad.

I always panic on the first day of work. You can do all the Stanislavsky-backstory homework, but when that moment arrives and you are in the clothes, hair, and makeup of somebody else, and you're saying the words created by somebody else - I never know how to do it. It's a complete mystery to me.

A lot of acting, as I grew up wanting to do, is kind of like magic... I'm not comparing myself to him in the least bit, but if you knew what Daniel Day-Lewis was doing every step of the way and what he was eating, I don't think when he popped up as Lincoln we would quite believe it.

I find that I kind of have to sink into the character.

When I prepare for a role, I try to get inside the character's head and understand him.