Carla Gugino Quotes

One of the first lessons you learn as an actor is to listen.

The key to acting has much more to do with listening than with talking.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument.

As an actor, your life experience is just as important as studying.

As an actor, you pay attention very closely to everything that happens to you, and you're constantly watching others as well, trying to just find out where everything comes from.

As an actor, being on autopilot is the worst thing possible.

To be a good actor you have to feel life and observe life.

As an actor, I trust my ear.

The best part about an actor is that they should firstly be receptive and secondly be expressive.

My job as an actor is to live the role that I do.

I was trained by Method acting teachers and we were taught that aside from whatever gift you may or may not have or the level of that gift, that you were obliged to know how to build a table. It's a craft. It's like being a ballerina or a violinist.

I love acting and really taking on another person, another life.

I have learned that acting is not about beauty.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression.

One was never taught how to begin at drama school. But all it required was one intake of breath.

As an actor, the training I received was that I walk through the world as an observer of life and of people. My job is to actually be looking out all the time and watching people.

The job of an actor is the same in all of them, really. I mean, you're just creating a character that you hope people will believe, so it doesn't make that much of a difference really.

I think one of the mistakes actors make is we're so focused on what we're going to say.

You're not going to learn about acting on TV and in film. You'll learn more in plays and in class.

I run the Actor's Studio on the West Coast, and one of the things I say all the time to the people I teach - many of whom are acting teachers - is that an actor needs to make choices that make him present.

To be a good actor, you need to be able to emote with your body.

Theater is the most enriching and thrilling thing to do as an actor.

The minute I start to talk about acting, I realize that I can't. You know, it's an abstract thing, a little bit mysterious even if you do it for a living.

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