Carla Gugino Quotes

If you can walk into a set and feel the reality of it, then immediately you're not having to work to bring yourself into the character.

The only thing we are as actors are messengers. That's all we are. Correct? We are delivering the playwright's intention through the concept of the director. And I come on stage; if I feel confident in the role, then I give it away.

Being an actor means asking people to look at you. I guess I accept that. But it's a profession in which the job is to show another world and other people. You may access it through bits of yourself, and your imagination and experience, but actually, in the end, you're not playing yourself.

That's always something that's really important for an actor - to find an opportunity to do a scene where there is a moment like that, where you manage to connect with everyone.

I'm on fire when I'm singing, I'm completely in character, I use my sense memories, and every syllable of it is meant. It's a very special thing.

I enjoy playing characters where the silence is loud.

If you're in a room and can be seen by actors, you need to understand that you can be felt by them.

An actor's job is about putting across the author's intention; I don't think of myself on the same level as a creator.

So we had life, death, illness, everything - every emotional involvement we had, we experienced. And I think that made what we had to do on stage, stronger. We got very much involved in what we were doing.

You know when you've found a part that you want to play. You know it because the part takes you over. It sits in the script waiting for you to play him.

I think energy is the most important thing that we can give to people as performers. Anything else is a little bit pretentious. But energy is not.

Actors are always looking for the eyes of the other actors because you need help and you need connection.

I know people who prepare their roles in such a way that they technically look ahead and memorize their gestures, and then they stick to it. Those that are technically proficient enough can make it seem natural, but they do that and don't really take in what other people are doing.

One of the exciting and enjoyable aspects of acting is being in the environment with another actor.

Movie acting is primarily listening. If you're really engaged, that's all a movie audience wants to see is you processing what's happening in your world.

Sometimes I feel like I'm a preacher as well, 'cause I can really get into an audience.

Actors have to make you believe that it's happening for the first time and all that jazz and make it human and at the same time entertain you.

I like to feel that something's alive in acting, like something's really going on.

For a performer, passion is far more important than technical skills. If a dancer's leg isn't at a perfect angle, I can see past that, but if someone's dead in the face, it's really boring.

Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world. You are all alone with your concentration and imagination, and that's all you have.

When I'm acting, I'm two beings. There's the one monitoring the distance between myself and the camera, making sure I hit my marks, and there is the one driven by this inner fire, this delicious fear.

I know that if I can't move people, then I have no business being an actor.

I enjoy acting when you really hit it right.

When the music is physically demanding, I want to make sure that the effort involved is put across to the audience through physical gesture.

I definitely believe in the energy of the set and the energy of the actor, way more than your written word.