Anna Faris Quotes

For me, I have having the time of my life playing this character [Louis Litt]. At times, it's unbelievably challenging and scary, when it comes to certain vulnerable areas that I don't necessarily want to go.

The opportunities I've had to play really complex characters - which haven't been a lot, but some - you never get over them.

People think that my favorite roles to do are villains, but I find comedy to be the most challenging and rewarding.

Frasier will always hold a special place in my heart. He's a great character I Ioved playing, and he's still a wonderful part of my life. But he was a lot of work!

I think it's my job to like any character I play - to understand and appreciate a character, to look at the world as much as possible from their point of view. I don't look at it just technically: learn the lines, figure out what gestures I want to bring and play, and that's it. I like to learn as much as I can about the person, and see what happens.

How as an actress are you meant to inhabit other people if you haven't lived? How are you meant to play someone who gets the bus to work or has a part-time job or whatever if I've never experienced any of it myself or if I haven't been to school? How does that make me someone that people can relate to? I don't think it's possible really.

I don't think I've seen that sort of character in a long time in this genre because again, there was a time when you could have quirky, strange characters that you grew to love, you didn't quite understand, you know, and then all of a sudden they became almost cardboard cutouts for awhile. You kind of know the guy, what his deal is - this guy's hard to figure out. He has some strange habits, but, you learn to love him and you discover more about him, where it comes from.

I'm hesitant to do leading man character roles because I think they can be a little boring in terms of needing to be the everyman who navigates the amazing stuff around them.

I basically enjoy doing films that are about something, that have complex roles that I can sink my teeth into. Basically, I gravitate to things that scare me. They might be things that I don't think I know how to play. I like trying to find within me where this character may exist. Whether is it is a fictional character or not I am not motivated by that. It is more about how challenging it is. It is just so happens that the more high profile things I have done have been historical characters.

I think you're bound to get a sense of any character that you play. It's not something you often do in comedy.

I feel my fuller-bodied characters are all in the independent films I do, and in the studio productions, I have to work harder to dimensionalize the characters. And that's certainly part of the job description of an actor - that's what you're supposed to do - but you have to work harder at it in the characters that I've encountered in studio films.

I think the ultimate goal is that when we're off-stage, we know everything our character is thinking. Hopefully when we are on-stage, our thoughts are our character's thoughts because we really know that much about them.

The most complicated character I have ever played - she has many, many, many layers that even I'm not fully aware of.

It's weird, not to sound too actor but I think that any time you do a performance, you kind of take a little piece of that character, cause it's a part of you you're using.

One of the first roles I had on stage was with a brilliant director in a brilliant play with a brilliant cast, but I just couldn't find my way into the heart of the character. I found myself straining a lot. When it started. I felt lost. That was the Eugène Ionesco play Rhinoceros. I don't think I was prepared for that. I don't think I had the full tool kit to do it justice. It's a very difficult play, it's an extraordinarily difficult part, and I never felt I really got it right. Far from it. To a degree, Hamlet was the same.

I'm an actor, so I'm interested in the pursuit of storytelling and character and challenging myself and expanding my craft. That's not something that ever ends, because as you grow as a person, so does your capacity to play different characters. New things come up, new things you want to explore and new stories you want tell about life and your knowledge of things. I don't think there's ever going to be that satisfaction of "and now, comfort."

I think I enjoy my job more now than I did when I started. When I started in 1996 on a national level, I was 27 and part of me was scared to death.

Interesting characters are troubled characters. The only problem I've had in my business is very few people - unfortunately, very vocal - confusing the difficult role that I play with me. I play these guys, but I'm not like them. I've been accused of being difficult to work with.

I did a film that was similar to that world, which was Brotherly Love, and the audience fell in love with [my character] June. So to be honest, I remembered what I did in that movie and studied that film and my mannerisms while shooting in Philly.

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 can't help moving my face - reacting - when I watch a movie, because I'm really inhabiting a character. I know this is weird, but it demonstrates what I love about cinema: it allows you to live a different life, to have a different experience, to disappear for two hours. I think it's wonderful.

I am drawn to roles that are strong, intelligent, and a little edgy. With Complications, I navigate my character Samantha Ellison through some really emotionally challenging times.

If people spend two hours thinking about the direction of their own lives and can relate to the stories they see on screen, to me that's a success.

I think there's grays in characters if you look at all the great characters, those characters that have those layers of being good and being bad and what's the struggle. It's always more interesting to watch.

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.