Josh Pais Quotes

And that's one thing that helps me is I learn it blandly, vanilla, then I don't try to act it too soon because you start to act it, and you kind of go away from what the next sentence is, what the next paragraph is. So get it down so it kind of can - it's in there so you can then, as I call it, dance on top of it.

I don't sit around and study the pages of a script over and over again.

People always ask about learning all of your lines as an actor, and it's generally the easiest part of the job.

For any role, I pretty much always go to the script, first and foremost.

The camera does not like acting. The camera is only interested in filming behaviour. So you damn well learn your lines until you know them inside out, while standing on your head!

A different script calls for different things. It always takes me a long time to get to know the part, and know the logic behind the words. I have to be with the script for quite a long time before things start to fall into place, before they become part of the character.

I'll read a script maybe twice, but I'll think about the role more than I'll rehearse lines.

I'm just always learning lines. I've learned to flag the really crucial scenes, and I start figuring them out and committing them to memory as soon as I get them.

As soon as I have the script in my hand, I'll be up in my apartment room pacing up and down learning it because it's just such a lovely thing to do.

You make a decision whether you just work on the script and believe in every moment and pick out every moment, or if you sit down and memorize lines. Once you really dig into a script, learning lines becomes almost second nature.

I'm the sort of actor who likes to talk about what we're going to do.

I'm a technician. I don't go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.

I guess I'm probably a Method actor; I don't know... I just think of it as staying in the zone.

I'm not the kind of actor that would know what my character had for breakfast last Tuesday.

The thing I noticed about Jack was when we did a reading of the script, just to warm up.

What I do is just go over and over and over my lines and learn the script so well that I can just be easy and relaxed. That's the way I always work.

Personally, I need to learn every word on the page before I go in and audition. I have not mastered the skill of holding pages in my hand and acting with pages in my hand. I find that every time I have to look at the page it takes me completely out of the scene.

I never practice before, I never work hours on a script. I just choose my characters and trust them, and after that, it's about the director taking your hand.

I was only interested in my scene, and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes. I got my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times. That was my research.

I demanded two weeks of rehearsal because to me as an actor, that's the most important time.

I take my time to get into the mindset of the character and say my lines. I really have to be the person that I am playing.

So from an actor's perspective, you really have no idea how you're acting.

I figure out who I'm playing opposite, and I really do study them.

I mean, a lot of time rehearsals are taken up with other things other than preparing a character.

Before shooting, I prepare with the actors much more like it's a theater play than a movie. Apparently, that way of working is very unusual.