Richard Schiff Quotes

I'd never played a character as long as I played Poussey. Spending time with her, so much time embodying that character, it was so - and still is and always will be - so special to me and a part of who I am.

Whatever I'm working on, the character I'm playing tends to slowly bleed into my own real life. Not in any kind of creepy, Method actor-y kind of way - it's just an innate kind of merging.

That's what I love about acting, you get to find little pieces of yourself in every character you play.

When I act, a part of me goes into the character I am playing.

I don't believe actors who say they don't bleed into their characters. It's absolutely impossible not to.

I am always physically and emotionally invested in the characters I play.

I honestly do think that every character - you pick up the things, little things that you like about them in your life. Especially if you play a character for a long time.

It took me a while to get over 'Highway'. I started living the character of 'Veera' very closely. I don't think I would be able to give so much to a character the way I did with her.

Ideally, when you play a character, she goes away with half of you, and you go away with half of her. And you learn something.

When you play a daily soap character that character lives with you for a really long time.

I think that there's something really special about doing a series. You get inside the skin of that character 'cause it's such a long time.

The psych up comes from knowing what I can both give and get from each role. I get a lot personally from each character I play that I am able to carry over into my everyday life.

What I didn't realize about television was that's true of acting, as well. You have that space of time to develop who you are, and you can use more and more of yourself. The lines between that character that I'm playing and myself become more and more blurred and, after awhile, they just disappear, altogether.

Even when you think you can detach yourself from the characters, you don't. Because you're spending so much time trying to realize this person and make them real that they do infect you, in a way. And you do take them home and live with them, even if you think you're turning the character off. But in order to pull off a role convincingly, you wind up thinking about that person all the time, and it does sort of creep into you. And then there are things that you'll respond to, or react to in a very different way than you would normally.

One of the pleasures of being an actor is that it takes you places you wouldn't ordinarily go, and you don't enter as a tourist, you really enter the life of the place.

I don't think there's a certain part of a character I take with me. There's a certain part of me I leave with each character, though.

I think everybody should act! I would encourage everybody to do one thing, join a theater class or something. It's so good to take a character that you think is wildly different from who you are, and to try to relate to that person and become that person is very helpful. It's hard to articulate what you learn, but you can feel the effect of these characters that you play and take with you.

I'm sure there's pieces of me in all the characters I play.

When you come out of the other end of a long process, working with a character [you realize] this character has really shaped my ideas.

As rewarding as a good film role can be, there is just nothing like getting up on a stage and taking an audience for a ride.

I am so used to being up on stage and talking to my fans that it's strange to be on stage and be someone else. I can't look at the audience during 'In the Heights' or I will start talking to them.

Sometimes I can't get out of the character because the story is very intense.

What I try to do as an actor is constantly find that, find ways to risk, find opportunities to fall on my face if it's going to be worth it, and then maybe I'll surprise myself.

I put a lot of time and energy and thought behind what I do and the characters that I create, and I don't want to do anything peripheral that is going to make an audience see me up there on the screen rather than who I'm playing.

Acting is the greatest answer to my loneliness that I have found.