Lin-Manuel Miranda Quotes

You want to be on your toes; You don't want to be in a Nic Cage movie and just have him blow by you as an actor.

One sign of a great actor is when he can be alone by himself on the screen, doing almost nothing, and producing one of a film's defining moments.

I do sometimes watch 'Dr. Who' and while the stories barely make sense, if at all, the doctor is such great company I don't care.

I call it predicament humor. You don't do anything that cuts the star off at the knees or worse. You make him intelligent; you give him great ideas and great things to do.

I play disturbed people a lot, but always with a bit of distance or tongue-in-cheek. Most of the villains I play are essentially harmless.

The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.

I watched 'Ghostbusters' from the age of four. It's my favorite movie, still. Bill Murray's, like, the weirdest straight man that you've ever seen. He's convinced that he's the normal one, even though he's definitely not.

I never pretended to be a great actor.

Our characters were antiseptic but we weren't. And if you remember what we did on BATMAN, as the scripts were written very funny, we played them very straight.

In every character that you play... I mean, I don't think I'll ever be the type of actor or performer per se who transforms, you know? Like Claire Danes transforms into Temple Grandin - I'm not gonna do that.

Hugh Grant does a great job with his style. Somehow understated yet timeless and seems to get it. He does it on and off camera.

I think, on a surface level, people are surprised to see me playing such a passive role in 'Good.'

When you're doing lots and lots of episodes and you're playing the same character, it's great because you really get to know the character and it becomes a really fast style and you find subtleties in it.

It'll be interesting to see if I ever have to play a typical, bland romantic interest. I'm quirky, and playing it kind of straight and bland doesn't interest me a whole lot.

I think actors go along a continuum from Simon Callow down to kind of Ross Kemp, and I like to think of myself as the Ross Kemp of comedy. He's very good in 'East Enders' because he plays a version of himself. I think I can play a version of myself - that's about all I can do.

I try to play serious scenes a little funny and the comedy a little serious.

I think I'm the best fit for characters that have a lot going on inside.

Any good actor is a character actor.

I think Ryan Gosling is a really great actor who's meticulous about his work. And I'd love to have the guts that Johnny Depp has to actually go outside the box on a character. When he plays a character, he plays it in a way that nobody else would.

Tone is so important because you can have a great script just be ruined with the wrong director - if they shtick it up or something. With 'Little Miss Sunshine,' I was so concerned they weren't going to play the pageant official realistically because you don't have to wink to play those kinds of characters.

I've seen so many excellent actors - excellent actors - who, the minute they're told they're in a comedy, turn into God knows what - creatures from another planet! I mean they just... the voice changes, they don't look the same, it's like - it has no similarity to any living human being, do you know what I mean?

I definitely wouldn't shy away from doing another action based project, but I feel like my forte is more like playing real, ordinary people. I'm a girl's girl.

Playing a plainer role means everything is dependent on the credentials of the actor, not the fact that they are as pretty as Julia Roberts. People start to look at their talent rather than their appearance. And playing the ugly part often means less time in the make-up chair, which is a great benefit on set.

I've always been cast in authority roles; I think because I have that presence... Comedically, I can play against that pretty well. I enjoy playing that arrogant ignorance. That's one of my favorite games to play in comedy.

It is how you approach the role given to you, and how you relate to that character and then how you adapt and gel into that role which makes you a good actor.